The 2024 Budapest Assembly election was held on 9 June 2024, concurrent with other local elections in Hungary. In December 2023, the Hungarian Parliament restored party-list proportional rules, which was last applied in the 2010 Budapest Assembly election. During the election, 32 representatives will be elected, while the Mayor of Budapest will be elected directly by popular vote at the same time.
During the 2014 and 2019 Budapest Assembly elections, voters elected the Mayor of Budapest, and the mayors of the 23 districts directly, while 9 seats in the assembly were distributed proportionally, taking into account votes cast for losing district mayoral candidates.
In October 2023, former liberal MPGábor Fodor, who by then had become a vocal supporter of the ruling party Fidesz, proposed the restoration of the party-list proportional rules in the Budapest Assembly elections, which was applied between 1994 and 2010. According to Fodor, the dominance of the district mayors in the General Assembly of Budapest results in "the capital's aspects appearing less in the decisions". According to the opposition politicians, Fidesz prepared the amendment of the electoral law with this opinion article months before the election, in the same way as in 2014, along the lines of current political interests. Incumbent mayor Gergely Karácsony argued "It is not realistic that a minion of Viktor Orbán's regime would have come up with this proposal from his own wellhead". Fodor's idea was widely embraced by the pro-government media in the following weeks. Independent media Telex.hu analyzed that the amendment complicates the situation of the opposition parties, who are forced to cooperate while running separately in the simultaneously held European Parliament election.[1]
The opposition Our Homeland Movement submitted the amendment proposal to the parliament in November 2023. According to them,
"the current system favors the two largest political poles (Fidesz and the left-wing opposition), which does not correspond to democratic diversity".[2] The parliament, with the government alliance Fidesz–KDNP's two-thirds majority, voted for the amendment to the law in December 2023, restoring the party list system after ten years.[3]
The old-new election system restored party-list proportional rules. List seats were distributed using the D'Hondt method. The 32 representative seats of the 33-member General Assembly of Budapest are allocated in proportion to the votes cast on party lists (the mayor is the 33th member of the assembly). A metropolitan list can be submitted by that party or organization that has a mayoral candidate in at least three districts or launch a candidate for the position of Mayor of Budapest. Parties whose lists reach the 5% entry threshold enter the General Assembly.[3]
–VDB
