The ruling alliance of Fidesz and Christian Democrats has retained a lead over opposition parties at the end of 2011, a summary of last year’s readings published by pollster Tarki on Wednesday said.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Fidesz had 43 percent of voter support, ahead of the Socialists who had 22 percent, radical nationalist Jobbik with 21 percent and small opposition LMP with 8 percent support, respectively.
Among young voters aged 18-37, Fidesz was in the lead with 42 percent of support, followed by 30 percent garnered by the Jobbik party and 14 percent by the Socialists. LMP’s support was the same in this age group as in the whole sample (8 percent), Tarki’s report said.
In its analysis of voter preferences over the past year, Tarki said the Fidesz-Christian Democratic alliance had lost a third of its supporters both among the whole populace and the 18-37 age group. At the same time Jobbik’s support camp grew by 9 percentage points in the whole sample and 10 points among young voters, respectively. The Socialists added 4 and 5 points, respectively, in the course of the year.
Gauging religious affiliations, the polls found that most respondents in the 18-37 age group said they were either not religious or “religious in their own way”. The highest percentage of “not religious” young voters were in LMP’s camp (41 percent), followed by Jobbik (39 percent), Fidesz (37 percent) and the Socialists (30 percent). In the whole voter sample, 57 percent of Socialist supporters claimed they were “religious in their own way”, compared to 49 percent in the Jobbik, 47 percent in the Fidesz and 41 percent in the LMP camp.
As regards respondents’ Roma origins, the polls show that 18 percent of voters had Roma origins among Socialist party supporters, compared to 14 percent among Fidesz, 9 percent among LMP and 1 percent among Jobbik supporters, respectively.
