Hungary will hold its 2018 parliamentary election on April 8, President Janos Ader said in a statement released through state news agency MTI on Thursday.
Hungary will hold its 2018 parliamentary election on April 8, President Janos Ader said in a statement released through state news agency MTI on Thursday.
He also said that the vote will be held on the anniversary of the 1990 elections, the first after the end of communism.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz party holds a comfortable lead over the main opposition, the nationalist Jobbik party, based on the latest opinion polls.
The Socialists are a distant third.
Orban has used the past eight years in office to rewrite the constitution and centralize power, filling posts at the central bank, the State Audit Office and the prosecution with party loyalists.
His reforms, such as hefty sectoral levies and measures affecting the judiciary and the media, have triggered conflicts with the European Union. Budapest and Brussels have also tussled over migration, which Orban strongly opposes.
But Orban's reforms have put the economy on track for growth of about four percent this year, the budget deficit has remained under the EU's three percent of gross domestic product threshold and Hungary's large debt pile has also declined in past years.
Ruling Fidesz party lawmaker Gergely Gulyas told a news conference that Fidesz, which is well ahead of the main opposition nationalist Jobbik party in the latest opinion polls, might not publish an election manifesto.
"In case of a ruling party, no information about how we plan to govern the country is more credible than the eight years we have left behind," Gulyas told a news conference.
Orban's re-election could bring about further clashes with the EU, as Budapest has already signaled it would veto any sanctions against regional neighbor Poland over its reforms affecting the judiciary.
Orban has also ruled out taking part in any EU-wide mechanism to settle migrants from the Middle East in Hungary, saying the Christian country, which has no history of large-scale immigration, should preserve its "ethnic homogeneity."
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