Preferentially Underrepresented? – Roma Representation in Hungarian Parliament

Roma minority is generally underrepresented in the Hungarian National Assembly. This paper aims to analyze the peculiarities of this underrepresentation as it is not only a result of general low political participation in connection with being in very vulnerable situation. In the Hungarian case it is especially the result of a fabricated election-system and other political pressures. European Court of Human Rights in a decision became final in early 2023 (Bakirdzi and E.C. V Hungary) ruled that the minority voting system in Hungary constitutes a violation of the Convention. States are not obliged to maintain a preferential election system for national and ethnic minorities, but in case they do so, the system should ensure the effective representation of the minorities. In Hungary, a minority list should reach quarter of the votes resulting in one ordinary mandate to fill the minority mandate. However, minority voters cannot vote for party lists to preserve the numerical equality of votes. Main reasoning of the judgment is that most of the minorities recognized in Hungary have only a couple thousands of members (and naturally, even less voters), thus they do not have any possibility to reach the so-called preferential quota and send an MP to parliament. Meaning that voters deciding to register as minority voters and by that surrender their right to choose among party lists, are essentially wasting their vote. Minority lists not reaching the quota will result in a minority advocate for the given minority in the National Assembly. Advocates are spokespersons. They have no voting rights and have limited speaking rights. Main reasoning of the judgment, however, is not applying to the Roma minority in Hungary. Roma, being the most populous one, could mobilize enough voters to reach the preferential quota and fill the preferential seat in the National Assembly – not with an advocate, but with a fully-fledged MP. The reality, however, is very moderate participation among Roma people, underrepresentation and an almost lack of Roma agenda in parliament. However, this kind of marginalization of the Roma issue is, again, not only an element of a general pattern in Eastern-Europe, and not only result of the election system. Of course, the latter is very well fabricated to serve the interests of the governing parties, but they also employ other political tactics, pressures to affect the results of any self-governing element of Roma politics. The paper examines the tactics mentioned, which essentially can be described as clientelist relations. The paper unfolds the main causes of underrepresentation and describes how the (ill-)functioning of the preferential system leads to a) moderate participation and b) wasting votes in the election process. The paper also shows, that despite having some Roma representatives, even from the opposition, issues of the most vulnerable minority are not really prevalent on the agenda of the National Assembly. Consequence of the whole system is that Roma identity-politics became almost impossible, or at least considerably exposed to the will of the government and national power-relations.