Constituency boundaries to remain unchanged until 2014

Although the Constitutional Court has ruled to redraw the current boundaries of Hungary’s electoral districts to come into effect by the end of this year, any possible by-elections will have to be held under the current scheme till 2014, MTI has learned from Gergely Gulyás, deputy of the governing Fidesz party.

"Parliament is not in the position to redraw constituency boundaries before the next general elections", the politician stated, otherwise by-elections could result in an overlap of elected deputies, he said.

Gulyás said the Fidesz-Christian Democratic party alliance would submit an election bill to Parliament in the autumn, proposing to downsize the legislature by nearly half, MTI wrote.

The court’s ruling was a response to large discrepancies in size between the constituencies. During the 2010 general elections the widest gap was between the district in Veszprém (W), where 26,000 voters were on the registry and the one in Szigetszentmiklós (south of Budapest) where 74,000 residents were registered.

This situation violates the Council of Europe’s recommendation for the size of constituencies, which should not deviate from the national average by more than 15 percent.

The parliamentary groups of the governing alliance will discuss the electoral bill in a session to start in Hajdúszoboszló on September 7.