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		</div><p>Low voter turnout has invalidated Hungary&#8217;s referendum on European Union refugee quotas, even though citizens voted in support of the government&#8217;s opposition to any future mandatory schemes to relocate asylum-seekers.</p>
<p>The government claimed a &#8220;sweeping victory&#8221; while analysts said the result was an &#8220;embarrassing but not totally catastrophic defeat&#8221; for Prime Minister Viktor Orban.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can be proud that we are the first and so far only member state of the European Union&#8221; to hold such a referendum, Mr Orban told supporters after results were known.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hungarians were able to give their direct opinions on the issue of immigration.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mr Orban said that despite the invalidity of the ballot, he would present a proposal to amend the Constitution reflecting people&#8217;s intentions.</p>
<p>&#8220;The (European) union&#8217;s proposal is to let the migrants in and distribute them in mandatory fashion among the member states and for Brussels to decide about this distribution,&#8221; Mr Orban said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hungarians today considered this proposal and they rejected it. Hungarians decided that only us Hungarians can decide whom we want to live with. The question was &#8216;Brussels or Budapest&#8217; and we decided this issue is exclusively the competence of Budapest.&#8221;</p>
<p>With 99.25% of the votes counted, more than 3.2 million voters &#8211; or 98.3% of those who cast valid ballots &#8211; backed the government.</p>
<p>Turnout stood at 43.9%, the National Election Office said. A rate of 50% plus one vote was needed for the referendum to be valid.</p>
<p>About four per cent of the votes were spoiled &#8211; twice as many as in any of the other four referenda held since 1997 &#8211; driving down the number of valid votes to just below 40%.</p>
<p>The referendum asked: &#8220;Do you want the European Union to be able to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?&#8221;</p>
<p>Mr Orban&#8217;s Fidesz party claimed victory immediately after voting stations closed, with party vice chairman Gergely Gulyas saying it was a &#8220;sweeping victory for all those who reject the EU&#8217;s mandatory, unlimited quotas&#8221;.</p>
<p>At the same time, analysts said the relentless government campaign against the EU&#8217;s refugee relocation schemes had oversaturated citizens.</p>
<p>&#8220;Orban was able to dominate public discourse with an issue in which the majority was on his side,&#8221; said Tamas Boros, analyst at Policy Solutions, a political research and consultancy firm.</p>
<p>&#8220;But it seems he went too far and overestimated how much people&#8217;s opinions are transformed into votes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Considering there was hardly any counter-campaign, that they spent some €50m and everyone on the right took up the issues wholeheartedly, it&#8217;s an embarrassing but not totally catastrophic defeat for Orban.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is his first national defeat since 2006, the first time in a decade that the prime minister cannot impose his will.&#8221;</p>
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