People queue to cast their vote at a polling station, after the official closing time, during general elections in central Budapest, Hungary. Photo / AP
People queue to cast their vote at a polling station, after the official closing time, during general elections in central Budapest, Hungary. Photo / AP
Early election results in Hungary's election give Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-wing populist Fidesz Party with a large lead.
Preliminary results from the National Election Office have Fidesz winning with 49.5 per cent of the vote.
If the result stands, Fidesz would hold 134 of the 199 seats in the national parliament and regain its super majority there.
With 69.1 per cent of the votes counted, the right-wing nationalist Jobbik Party was coming in second with 19.9 per cent of the votes and 27 seats.
The alliance of the left-wing Socialist and Dialogue parties had 11.8 per cent, meaning it would have 19 deputies in parliament.
Numerous voting stations remained open after the deadline to accommodate the long lines of people waiting to vote.
Orban is seeking his third consecutive term.
The turnout is the highest for 20 years.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban sits in a car outside a polling station in Budapest, Hungary. Photo / AP
A bitterly fought campaign saw Orban demonising immigrants, Brussels, and foreign-funded NGOs.
The campaign highlighted the gap between Orban and Brussels over migration issues and raised questions about his increasingly autocratic approach to government that has seen Fidesz monopolise the media and other apparatus of state.
Fidesz was facing calls for an inquiry into alleged electoral irregularities after the Telegraph revealed how the country's diplomatic corps was being pressed into finding "negative" immigration stories to boost Orban's re-election campaign.
The Swedish ambassador to Hungary, leading opposition figures from both the left and right as well as senior figures in Brussels, all accused Fidesz of misusing state power for propaganda purposes.
People queue to cast their vote at a polling station in central Budapest. Photo / AP
As independent television channels alleged other irregularities, including vote buying and transport of voters in the southwestern city of Pécs, opposition supporters began to gather in Budapest where extra police were being deployed.
In one Budapest district the voting line was reported to be nearly a 1.5km long.
Opposition parties had been hopeful that a turnout approaching 70 per cent could see a repeat of the shock defeat that was handed to Fidesz party in 2002, although the majority of analysts remained cautious about the chances of an upset.
Eve-of-vote polls had suggested Orban was comfortably on track to win another term, with two leading pollsters showing his party winning 40 per cent of the vote.
