This shows that people saw the referendum as a national cause and did not vote according to party preference, he insisted.

He called the opposition’s campaign urging voters to boycott the referendum as “dangerous”, arguing there were now no guarantees that efforts to get out the vote in the 2018 general election would be successful.

Tamás Lánczi, analyst for the Századvég Foundation, predicted that the “no” camp would get around 3.1 to 3.2 million votes, which he said was similar to Fidesz’s share in the 2008 referendum, when the party was at the height of its popularity as an opposition party.

Now, halfway through their second term in government, when a ruling party is typically at its lowest ebb in the polls, Fidesz achieved a similar result, he said.

Lánczi also said that the opposition parties were “deceiving themselves” by “pretending” that those who had sat out the referendum were their voters.

He said the opposition was “building a wall” between itself and voters by ignoring the votes of more than 3 million people.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.