2009 European Parliament election in Hungary

An election of Members of the European Parliament from Hungary to the European Parliament was held in 2009. Hungary delegated 22 members to the European Parliament based on the Nice treaty and the election took place on 7 June.

Candidates
Among the candidates that ran were:
 * Pál Schmitt, József Szájer, Kinga Gál, János Áder, László Surján, Lívia Járóka, András Gyürk, Béla Glattfelder, Ádám Kósa, Ágnes Hankiss for Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union
 * Kinga Göncz, Edit Herczog, Zita Gurmai, Csaba Sándor Tabajdi, Gyula Hegyi, Szabolcs Fazekas, Gyula Cserei, Mihály Kökény, Gábor Harangozó for the Hungarian Socialist Party
 * Lajos Bokros, György Habsburg, Szabolcs Joó, Ibolya Dávid for the Hungarian Democratic Forum
 * István Szent-Iványi, Gabriella Béki, Gábor Demszky, György Konrád for the Alliance of Free Democrats
 * Krisztina Morvai, Zoltán Balczó, Csanád Szegedi, Judit Szima, Gábor Vona for Jobbik – Movement for a Better Hungary

Election
The election in Hungary took place according to the 2003 CXIII. law about European election and the 1997 C. election law. According to this the country consists of a single election district and those parties will be put on the ballot who could collect 20,000 proposal coupons. Eight qualified lists were approved by Hungarian authorities to be put on the ballot, of which two of them were shared lists. Fidesz shared its party list with the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) to create a joint Fidesz-KDNP list, and Politics Can Be Different shared its party list with the Humanist Party to create a joint LMP-HP list.



Results
The European Parliament elections' biggest winners were the centre-right opposition Fidesz party, which won 56% of the vote and 14 seats. The far-right Jobbik ("For a Better Hungary") party also performed stronger than expected. The Hungarian Democratic Forum also gained one seat, so the former finance minister Lajos Bokros could travel to Brussels.

The liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) was almost wiped off the political map, attracting only 60,000 votes or 2%, compared to more than a million in the country's first free elections 19 years ago.

List of seat winners
On the Fidesz Party list:
 * 1) Pál Schmitt
 * 2) József Szájer
 * 3) Kinga Gál
 * 4) János Áder
 * 5) László Surján
 * 6) Tamás Deutsch
 * 7) Lívia Járóka
 * 8) György Schöpflin
 * 9) András Gyürk
 * 10) Csaba Őry
 * 11) Béla Glattfelder
 * 12) Ádám Kósa
 * 13) Ágnes Hankiss
 * 14) Enikő Győri

On the Hungarian Socialist Party list: On the Jobbik Party list: On the Hungarian Democratic Forum Party list:
 * 1) Kinga Göncz
 * 2) Edit Herczog
 * 3) Zita Gurmai
 * 4) Csaba Tabajdi
 * 1) Krisztina Morvai
 * 2) Zoltán Balczó
 * 3) Csanád Szegedi
 * 1) Lajos Bokros

Consequences
Alliance of Free Democrats Party leader Gábor Fodor announced that he will offer his resignation in case his party will not reach the 5% limit needed for representation in the European Parliament (the same limit is applied in national elections). After the election results were published Fodor repeated his statement promising to offer his resignation to the party congress the following day. The election result ultimately caused mass resignations including Fodor in the leadership of SZDSZ and internal turmoil in the party. The election results prompted an intense debate about the future of the party in MSZP as well.