Forecasting Parliamentary Outcomes in Multiparty Elections : Hungary

Forecasting seat outcomes in legislative elections in countries with stable, two-party systems is su ciently challenging as to have proven elusive for much of democratic experience. Forecasting an election in a relatively new democracy with a uid multi-party system, therefore, would seem on its face to be a hopeless objective. In this paper I attempt to demonstrate that election forecasting in such an environment is in fact quite feasible, using data from previous elections, opinion poll research, and computer simulation models to predict the outcome of the Hungarian parliamentary elections which took place in May 1998. First, I discuss the general problems with election forecasting, and then outline a strategy for dealing with each. I outline a forecasting method in detail, which I apply to Hungary's case to generate a prediction published in December 1997. The remainder of the paper compares the actual results of the election to the author's forecasts published before the election, identifying areas for improvement in the basic forecasting model but also proving that accurate forecasting of nal outcomes in multiparty elections is possible in practice.