By-election victory marks breakthrough for Hungary's far-right Jobbik

Hungary's radical rightwing Jobbik party scored a narrow victory in a by-election on Sunday night, marking a breakthrough in its challenge to the Fidesz party of Viktor Orban, prime minister

With more than 99 per cent of ballots counted, Lajos Rig, Jobbik's candidate, topped the poll in the district of Tapolca, with 35.3 per cent of the vote. Official confirmation of the results is not expected until 500 ballots cast by Hungarians abroad are counted later in the week.

Although much of the campaign was dominated by local issues, the result mirrors opinion polls indicating rising national support for Jobbik at the expense of Fidesz, which has seen its support seep away since it won re-election last year. The result underscores a wider trend of growing support for radical populist parties across Europe.

"The mood in Hungary is for a change of government and with Jobbik, Hungary finally has the force to change the government," Gabor Vona, Jobbik's leader, told supporters celebrating in Tapolca, a western town near Lake Balaton on Sunday night.

Mr Rig, 41, a healthcare worker, is Tapolca's deputy mayor. His victory over Zoltan Fenyvesi, Fidesz's candidate, comes in the wake of unpopular government restrictions on Sunday trading and opposition criticism of its handling of financial scandals at several broker firms.

Fidesz lawmakers had sought to push back against the rising Jobbik tide by intensifying their attack in the closing stages of the campaign, with prominent figures comparing the party's policies to Nazism.

But Mr Vona has led a drive to increase Jobbik's mainstream appeal and distance the party from anti-semitic elements - most recently when he criticised one of his MPs for spitting on a holocaust memorial in central Budapest.

"Desecrating the memory of the dead, the notion of collective guilt and vulgar acts have no place in Jobbik," Mr Vona told Magyar Nemzet, a national newspaper, in March. "This doesn't mean that we can't talk about Hungary's Jewish community, Israel's politics or about the Gypsy problem," he added.

The party's attitudes towards Russia have also come under scrutiny since leading party members acted as official observers at elections held by pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk in 2014. One of the party's lawmakers in the European parliament is awaiting a hearing on allegations of links to the Russian intelligence services.

In spite of Sunday's defeat and the party's slide in opinion polls. Mr Orban, whose government retains a large majority in parliament, said last week the result would not affect his party's mandate.

In a post on his Facebook page on Sunday night, Mr Orban, an enthusiastic football supporter, thanked Zoltan Fenyvesi, the Fidesz candidate, for his work before acknowledging disappointment.

"Sometimes the ball hits the post," he wrote.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation