Hungary's double and binding referendum on whether to grant dual citizenship to ethnic Hungarians abroad and whether to stop the privatisation of health care facilities failed on 5 December as neither of the two questions were answered by the required minimum number of eligible citizens. At least 25% of all registered voters would have had to vote one way or another for the referendum to be valid. With 99.84% of the votes counted, turnout was reported by the authorities to be 37.46%. The final official results are due later this week after ballots from abroad are counted.
Of all those who did vote, 51.55% (1.5 million people) cast their ballots in favour of granting dual citizenship while 48.45% (1.4 million people) voted against. On the issue of halting hospital privatisation, 65.01% (1.9 million people) voted yes and 34.99% (1 million people) voted no.
"The referendum failed," Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány said. "I understand that the country does not confuse nationalism with responsible patriotism." Gyurcsány's socialist-liberal coalition had campaigned for a "no" vote on both referendum issues. He said that he had won "without joy", and criticised the opposition for playing with the feelings of the nation. "I heard the voters say no to emotion, partiality and to a fruitless looking to the past and to national and social populism," he said.
The leader of the country's conservative opposition, former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán insisted that the vote was valid. Orbán's camp was campaigning for the approval of both motions. "The 'yes' votes won, the 'no' votes lost. The referendum was valid," he said. He blamed the prevailing existential problems for the low turnout and called on the government to support dual citizenship despite the vote.
Miklós Patrubány, the leader of the World Federation of Hungarians, which initiated the referendum on dual citizenship, said that "the other side won using a campaign of lies [...] This issue enjoys tremendous support and the only reason it could not prevail is due to [...] election fraud".
