Hungary's ruling Fidesz party proposed changes on Saturday to the electoral system that would scrap run-offs in individual parliamentary constituencies and make it harder for small parties to field candidates, according to Reuters. Fidesz, which has used its two-thirds majority in parliament to rewrite Hungary's constitution, has said it would draft a new electoral law by the end of the year due to a cut in the number of lawmakers to 200 from 386 at the next election in 2014. News agency MTI cited Fidesz MEP Janos Ader, in charge of electoral reform, as saying the party proposed to scrap a second round of voting in constituencies where neither candidate secures more than half the votes cast in the first round. Candidates would also have to gather recommendations from 1,500 voters to get on the ballot, double the current level. A political analyst said the initial details of proposed changes favoured big parties and were expected to make life more difficult for smaller ones. "The most important change is that candidates will have to gather 1,500 recommendations. This could be lethal for small parties because it is very hard to collect so many," analyst Zoltan Kiszelly said. Under the proposed reforms, the candidate winning the most votes would win outright and a so-called compensation list used to take losing votes into account for a number of parliamentary seats would be scrapped, Ader was cited by MTI as saying. He said the 200 seats in parliament would be divided roughly evenly between votes cast in individual constituencies and national party lists. A 5 percent threshold needed on the national list to get into parliament would remain in place, MTI cited Ader as saying. Details on how ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary's borders in Central Europe could vote in the next election, as promised earlier by Fidesz, would be worked out by the end of August, Ader was cited as saying. Speaking of the proposed doubling in required recommendations for the ballot, Kiszelly said, "The Hungarian electoral system is based on having candidates in every constituency, if possible, because having a candidate also attracts a vote for the party list. "If you cannot field a candidate, your voters may not even turn up," he added. The single-round voting system also favoured big parties with an active voter base, such as Fidesz, Kiszelly said. The latest opinion poll put support for centre-right Fidesz at 27 percent in June, while the main opposition Socialists were at 12 percent. LMP and Jobbik, the two smaller parties in parliament, scored 3 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Public support for Fidesz has declined in recent months as it unveiled budget cuts to reduce the deficit and public debt.
