'Anyone but Orban': Hungary's opposition votes for who will try to unseat strongman leader in next year's elections

Peter Marki-Zay, a conservative provincial mayor, will challenge Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at an election next year after winning in an opposition primary vote, according to results.

Mr Marki-Zay, a practising Catholic and father-of-seven, beat Klara Dobrev, an MEP with the leftist Democratic Coalition party (DK), in a major upset after only being endorsed by two of the six parties entering the primary.

The primary was designed by a six-party opposition alliance formed last year in an effort to combat a mainly first-past-the-post election system that favours Mr Orban and his ruling right-wing Fidesz party.

The vote, Hungary's first ever primary contest, aimed at selecting just one contender to oppose Mr Orban - as well as single candidates in each constituency to go up against Fidesz - in the election due next April.

Opinion polls have put the opposition alliance neck-and-neck with Fidesz, and Mr Marki-Zay best-placed to defeat the nationalist premier.

After the first primary round last month that saw more than 600,000 people take part, Mr Marki-Zay and Ms Dobrev were the final candidates battling it out.

Mr Marki-Zay, 49, came third in the first round but persuaded the runner-up - liberal Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony, who had been the favourite - to withdraw and endorse him in the run-off.

During the campaign he argued that only he can appeal to both leftist voters and conservatives tired of Orban's often divisive policies such as anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ drives.

An economist and engineer who lived in the US and Canada for five years, Mr Marki-Zay grabbed national attention in 2018 when he won the mayoralty in the small city of Hodmezovasarhely.

Although the southern city with a population of 44,000 had been a Fidesz stronghold for decades, he rallied cross-party support in what he called the blueprint for opposition success nationwide.

Despite having no party machinery or significant funding, Mr Marki-Zay was also boosted during the primary race by support from younger voters open to his anti-elite and anti-corruption messages.

The primaries were called an "amazing success" by organisers, mobilising over 800,000 voters in total, almost 10 percent of the electorate in the 9.8 million population EU member.

"It gives legitimacy, the opposition will have candidates in next year's election who have a chance to change the government," Marta V. Naszaly, a Budapest district mayor who volunteered to count votes, told AFP Sunday.