Development of Hungarian electoral law after 2010

Abstract

After the short historical introduction the paper deals with the current electoral legislation of Hungary. The Hungarian electoral law was always complicated and the current regulation has preserved this tradition. The new electoral acts from 2011 and 2013 reshaped the mixed electoral system, which is actually open towards the members of the Hungarian diaspora living worldwide. The problem is the form of the voting. The Hungarian citizens living abroad without official residency in Hungary can vote only on the candidate lists of political parties. They can vote by post. The citizens who have also the address in Hungary can vote only at the embassies. The members of national and ethnic minorities who live in Hungary can use after the registration the special regime of representation. The candidate list of minority self-governments have to achieve at least 25% of votes, which need the candidate list of political parties to enter the Par-liament. If they did not achieve this number of votes, the unsuccessful minority can send to the Parliament its representative with consultative character. Currently only the German minority has normal mandate, other minorities have only their respective representatives. Every sophisticated and complicated electoral system is more sensitive. This is also the case of Hungary.