Based on the research, it can be stated that
Public perception of Péter Márki-Zay is at the lowest
One month before the parliamentary elections, the popularity of the left’s candidate for prime minister reached its lowest peak, with 68 percent of respondents having a negative opinion of Péter Márki-Zay, according to the latest poll conducted by Századvég. The survey examined the development of the electoral perception of the left-wing parties’ candidate for prime minister among politically active Hungarians.
More than two-thirds of Hungarians reject the left’s candidate for prime minister
from February to March, the proportion of those who expressed a negative opinion about Péter Márki-Zay increased from 62 percent to 68 percent,
while the camp of those who were in favour of the politician decreased from 33 percent to 29 percent during the period mentioned. It is important to emphasise that the popularity of Márki-Zay has been steadily declining since he became the left’s candidate for prime minister: Compared to October 2021, the proportion of those who rejected Péter Márki-Zay increased by a total of 21 percentage points, from 47 percent to 68 percent.
Márki-Zay’s policy is divisive among left-wing voters as well
It is easy to see that within a political community, the candidate for prime minister should necessarily be an integrative person who is able to unite and address the camp in the election preparation process. However, Péter Márki-Zay himself and his policy are divisive among the partisans of the opposition coalition and those who claim to be left-wing in terms of political self-classification. It can be stated that
16 percent of the opposition coalition voters and 26 percent of those who claim to be left-wing do not like the left-liberal candidate for prime minister either.
Fewer people in Budapest like Péter Márki-Zay
According to their self-classification, the majority of those in the centre (54 percent) also have a negative opinion of Péter Márki-Zay,
while 40 percent of them expressed a positive opinion of the politician. It is important to highlight that Márki-Zay failed to successfully address the base that is politically active but uncertain in their partisanship:
only 12 percent of uncertain voters like the person leading the list of the left, while almost three-quarters (73 percent) have an unfavourable opinion of him.
It is interesting that the popularity of the left-liberal candidate for prime minister has recently continued to decline in Budapest as well. While in January 2022, 52 percent of respondents in the capital rejected Péter Márki-Zay and 42 percent liked him,
the latest survey data show that 61 percent of the residents in Budapest expressed a negative opinion and 37 percent expressed a positive opinion of Márki-Zay.
In other words, the proportion of those in the capital who expressed a negative opinion of the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely increased by 9 percentage points compared to the data in January.
Methodology
CATI method, n=1000, among the politically active Hungarian adult population (politically active = who promise to vote for sure or probably vote), data collection: March 2022