The 2019 Budapest mayoral election was held on 13 October 2019 to elect the

Mayor of Budapest The Mayor of Budapest ( hu, Budapest főpolgármestere) is the head of the General Assembly in Budapest, Hungary, elected directly for 5-year term since 2014 (previously municipal elections were held quadrennially). Until 1994 the mayor was elect ...

(''főpolgármester''). On the same day,

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

were also held throughout

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

, including the districts of Budapest which will determine the composition of the

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...

. The election is run using a

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

system. The winner of the election will serve for a term of five years.

Candidates

On 10 October 2018,

István Tarlós István Tarlós (; 26 May 1948) is a Hungarian politician who served as the Mayor of Budapest from 2010 to 2019. Previously he served as the Mayor of the Third District (Óbuda-Békásmegyer) of the city between 1990 and 2006 (as an independent ...

announced that he will run for a third term as Mayor, after negotiating about his future role with Prime Minister

Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between ...

. Also in October, independent publicist Róbert Puzsér declared his run for the mayorship, and published his manifesto ''Walking Budapest''.

Opposition primary

In December 2018, the Hungarian Socialist Party reached an agreement with

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

candidate Róbert Puzsér about a two-round primary. According to that, there would be a first round (in February), where the socialists and their allies would participate, and a second round (in June) where the "candidate of the centre" would join them. The first round was conducted between 28 January and 3 February. Two candidates participated: Csaba Horváth (

MSZP The Hungarian Socialist Party ( hu, Magyar Szocialista Párt), commonly known by its acronym MSZP, is a Centre-left politics, centre-left social democracy, social-democratic and Pro-Europeanism, pro-European list of political parties in Hungary, ...

group leader in the General Assembly) and

Gergely Karácsony Gergely Szilveszter Karácsony (; born 11 June 1975) is a Hungarian politician, political scientist and current Mayor of Budapest. He previously served as member of the National Assembly (MP) from 2010 to 2014 and Mayor of Zugló from 2014 to ...

( Dialogue, mayor of

Zugló Zugló (german: Lerchenfeld) is the official name of the 14th district of Budapest ( hu, Budapest XIV. kerülete), the capital of Hungary. It is a large and mixed neighborhood, with communist era style highrise apartments sprinkled between dec ...

). After the first round, a second round between Karácsony and Puzsér was planned in July. Opposition parties

Politics Can Be Different Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

Jobbik The Movement for a Better Hungary ( hu, Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom), commonly known as Jobbik (), is a conservative political party in Hungary. Originating with radical and nationalist roots, at its beginnings, the party described itself ...

endorsed Puzsér, with the condition that he takes part in the primary. Multiple forums and debates were held between the two, but on 8 April Puzsér announced he would not take part, citing a recent agreement about district mayoral candidates which did not include the parties supporting him. The

European Parliament election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Unti ...

caused a major change in the balance of power, as the Socialists-Dialogue alliance gained only 6% of the votes, with the Democratic Coalition taking 16% and new party Momentum (M) taking almost 10%. This prompted Momentum to announce their candidate, entrepreneur Gábor Kerpel-Fronius ( hu) on 3 June, followed by the Democratic Coalition on 6 June, their candidate being television host

Olga Kálmán Olga Kálmán (born 23 February 1968) is a politically independent Hungarian news editor, television host, left-wing politician, member of parliament, and author. Between 2003 and 2016, she was the host of ATV's ''Straight Talk'' (Egyenes Beszé ...

. The second round was conducted between 20 and 26 June with online and in-person voting. On 23 June a televised debate was held between the three candidates on the channel ATV.Előválasztási vita 2019 - Összecsapott Kálmán Olga, Karácsony Gergely és Kerpel-Fronius Gábor
YouTube, ATV Magyarország ''(in Hungarian)'' According to the organizers' self-imposed criteria, the primary was valid, as more than 50 000 valid votes were cast.

Opinion polling

Results

References

{{Budapest elections 2019 in Hungary

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Local elections in Hungary History of Budapest