CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s focus on border fences may have earned his country the nickname "fortress Hungary," but his party is not shy about courting voters abroad.

As the spring 2018 election approaches, the ruling Fidesz party is ramping up its efforts to encourage Hungarian citizens in surrounding countries to register to vote.

“Dual citizenship has allowed several hundred thousand Hungarians to officially become part of the Hungarian nation,” Orbán wrote in a July letter sent to ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries.

“In the coming years, we will need to make decisions that will decide Hungary’s fate, decisions that will have an effect on the entire Carpathian Basin,” he wrote, urging dual citizens to register.

Over the summer, billboards sponsored by a local chapter of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) party appeared in Romania’s Transylvania region, calling for Hungarians to register to vote. Another local branch announced in late July that it was launching a phone campaign to encourage local Hungarian citizens to register.

“The absolute majority of Fidesz is at risk” — Viktor Szigetvári of Hungary’s liberal opposition party Együtt

The Hungarian government estimates that by November the number of new citizens — added since a 2010 expansion of citizenship rights to ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries— will reach 1 million.

Hungary’s parliament is selected using a mixed system, whereby some MPs are elected through single-member districts and others through party lists. Citizens in surrounding countries don’t have districts — but they may cast a vote for a party list.

Nevertheless, it is widely believed that voters in surrounding countries could make a difference in the election’s outcome.

“The absolute majority of Fidesz is at risk,” said Viktor Szigetvári, who heads the National Political Council of Hungary’s liberal opposition party Együtt.

Fidesz is currently two MPs' votes short of a two-thirds majority in parliament, which is required for making constitutional changes. Votes from abroad could sway two seats, said Szigetvári, thus potentially changing the equation for the ruling party.

Century-old tensions

Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory following World War I (although chunks of this were in any case disputed with its neighbors). There are now Hungarian-speaking communities in Slovakia, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine. The largest, in Romania, consists of about 1.2 million Hungarian speakers.

In Cluj-Napoca, the capital of Transylvania and Romania's second largest city, Hungarian-speaking residents maintain a mental map of the city, referring to each street by its Hungarian name — even though the names cannot be found on any signs or formal maps. A statue of King Matthias, a 15th-century leader revered by Hungarians, stands in the main square.

But in the surrounding cafes, most people can be heard chatting in Romanian. Hungarians are a minority in the city, although in other parts of the country — the counties of Harghita and Covasna in pariticular — they are a sizable majority.

“Hungarians living in Romania, while being Romanian citizens, from a cultural, linguistic and historical perspective see themselves as part of the Hungarian nation, a feeling reinforced by the fact that the Romanian state is often hostile to the Hungarian minority,” said Csaba Sógor, a member of the European Parliament from UDMR, the main Romanian political group representing ethnic Hungarians. UDMR won 6.2 percent of the popular vote in the 2016 election.

With Romania preparing to celebrate the centenary of its creation in its modern-day form, heightened tensions over minority language and cultural rights are dominating many conversations.

And with Romania’s presidential election and the European Parliament election coming up in 2019 — plus a lack of progress on raising living standards — there are fears that local politicians may resort to nationalist rhetoric as a political tactic.

Attila László, a member of Romania’s senate representing UDMR, said: “2018 won’t be a simple year for anyone.” “We don’t want Transylvanian Hungarian society to be a kind of target,” he added.

Fidesz courts voters

Fidesz has used this "outsider" feeling among the ethnic Hungarian minority to develop a unique relationship with potential voters living within Romania's borders.

On a recent summer evening, hundreds crowded into the Hungarian theater building in the city center of Cluj (as it is commonly known) for the opening of a Hungarian cultural festival. Among the guests of honor in the front row were not only local politicians but also László Kövér, the speaker of Hungary’s national assembly and one of the founders of Fidesz.

Fidesz works closely with some local Hungarian groups, and the government in Budapest funds a wide range of projects in the region, from language education and the arts to voter registration drives. Thus far, its efforts have paid off: In Hungary’s 2014 election, over 95 percent of votes cast by non-domestic citizens went to Fidesz.

“Fidesz pursues a policy of national unity above borders and supports the aspirations for autonomy of Hungarians beyond the border,” said László Tőkés, a protestant pastor from Transylvania who was elected to the European Parliament on Fidesz’s list as a Hungarian politician.

Fidesz is popular among Transylvanian Hungarians in part because it supports the fight against “assimilation and emigration,” he said.

But some politicians believe that Fidesz’s appeal in Transylvania has to do with more than ideology.

“I’m counting on you!” — Viktor Orbán, in a letter to Hungarians in neighboring countries

“I am convinced that those who vote for Fidesz don’t all agree with each of its decisions,” said Hunor Kelemen, a member of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies who serves as president of the UDMR party. “Orbán and a few other people’s personalities — and the emotional connection — is much stronger,” he said, citing the fact that Orbán and other top Fidesz politicians have been traveling to the region and meeting with locals since the 1980s.

Each year, Orbán’s most important policy speech takes place not in Hungary, but across the border in Tusnádfürdő (Băile Tuşnad in Romanian) where Fidesz has been organizing a summer camp for the past 28 years. And when his party came to power in 2010, one of the first major policy changes Orbán implemented was extending citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in surrounding countries — a policy move that left-wing parties campaigned against during a 2004 referendum.

“The vast majority, at least 75 or 80 percent according to our own opinion polls, will vote Fidesz for sure ... and it could be even higher,” said Kelemen, who meets with the Hungarian prime minister about four times a year.

Controversial voting system

Some opposition politicians though, argue that the cross-border voting is unfair and designed to boost Fidesz's electoral prospects.

Unlike Hungarians living within Hungary itself or Hungarians working in Western Europe — who generally have an address in Hungary — Hungarian voters in surrounding countries don’t have to have a base in Hungary and are thus allowed to vote by mail. These voters are typically much more pro-Fidesz than Hungarian citizens residing in cities such as London.

Critics also worry that the system Fidesz implemented for voting in surrounding nations leaves the door open to fraud: Citizens in surrounding countries only need to register to vote every 10 years.

“There will be tens of thousands of dead citizens in the electoral registry,” said Szigetvári of opposition party Együtt.

But Fidesz faces challenges in mobilizing voters in the region. The Cluj theater building where Kövér spoke was packed, but the crowd was mostly older: Low birth rates and decades of emigration are taking their toll as Hungarians become a smaller minority.

Moreover, not all Hungarian speakers are keen to vote for representation in Budapest. It is estimated that in 2014 less than half of eligible citizens in surrounding countries voted in Hungary’s election.

But the government in Budapest still hopes that by engaging energetically with Hungarians in surrounding countries, the electorate will grow.

As Orbán wrote in his letter to Hungarians in neighboring countries: “The unification of the nation across borders was not only a gesture on our behalf — a past due reparation — it was more of an everyday act to allow us to shape our destiny together, to determine our own future.”

“I’m counting on you!” he added.