Elections in Hungary - Local Elections

Local Elections

Elections for mayors and municipalities (Hungarian: Helyi önkormányzati választások) occur every four years in the autumn following the general elections. On the local elections, the following are elected directly by the voters:

in Budapest

• Lord Mayor of Budapest (now since 2010: István Tarlós, between 1990 and 2010: Gábor Demszky)
• members of the City Council of Budapest (since 2010: 33, 1994-2010: 66, 1990-1994: 88)
  • voters vote for party-lists

• Mayors of the districts of Budapest
• members of the District Council
  • districts of Budapest are divided to election zones (not to be confused with the constituencies of the country), and voters can vote for one of the candidates representing their election zone in the District Council

in the towns/cities with county rank:

• Mayor of the town/city
• members of the Town/City Council
  • voters vote for party-lists

in the counties (excluding towns/cities with county rank):

• members of the County Council
  • voters vote for party-lists

• Mayor of the cities, towns, villages
• members of the City/Town/Village Council
  • cities, towns and villages larger than 10000 inhabitants are divided to election zones (not to be confused with the constituencies of the country), and voters can vote for one of the candidates representing their election zone in the City/Town Council
  • towns and villages smaller than 10000 inhabitants are not divided to election zones, in these villages voters can choose as many candidates out of all the candidates as many seats there are in the Village Council, so for instance in a Village Council, where 7 seats are available and there are 15 candidates, the voters can vote for 1 to 7 candidates (exception if the village is administratively part of a town or city, in this case the village has got one seat in the Town/City Council and villagers can only vote for one candidate representing their village in the Town/City Council just like in case of the election zones of the towns and cities)

The chairman of the County Council is elected by the members of the Council, unlike the Lord Mayor of Budapest or the Mayors of towns/cities with county rank, which are elected directly.