Who asks the questions seems to be crucial in opinion polls ahead of the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 12.
Government-loyal pollsters show a lead for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's ruling Fidesz party of at least 5-6 percentage points.
Opposition-affiliated polling institutes, in turn, indicate that challenger Péter Magyar and his Tisza party are leading by at least 10 percentage points. Independent surveys show the same thing - but the government accuses them of secretly supporting the opposition.
Observers
Who is right will be revealed on election day - if election observers and election officials do their job.
It is important that opposition parties can send delegates to the constituencies to monitor how election day goes. International observers will also be crucial - although we must be prepared for "fake observers", often party-allied, like-minded politicians from the West who report that "everything was in order",
said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German organization GMF, at an event in Brussels at the think tank EPC.
She believes in the polls that show a large lead for the opposition. If they hold up, she doesn't think Orbán will be able to declare himself the winner.
"It depends on how close it is. If the gap does not narrow, Fidesz will have a very difficult time producing a result that shows they have won. If so, it will come with a high political price,"
Végh says.
Tense election day
Hungary has fallen sharply in international democracy surveys, which has raised concerns about actions similar to Georgia, Russia or Belarus, where the ruling party declares itself the winner regardless of how people actually vote.
Edit Zgut-Przybylska, assistant professor at CEU University in Vienna, is pinning her hopes on the Hungarian police not playing along.
"They are reported to be very reluctant to engage in any kind of overt illegality,"
says Zgut-Przybylska, whose university was started by Hungarian-born businessman George Soros, who has long been in opposition to Orbán.
Warning in advance
EPC analyst Eric Maurice urges the rest of Europe to raise a warning finger in advance.
"The leaders of the EU countries should make it clear to Viktor Orbán that he should not take that path... and not allow an election manipulation that has never been seen before in the EU,"
Maurice says at the event in Brussels.
Hungary is holding parliamentary elections on April 12. Of the 199 seats, 106 are elected via single-member constituencies and 93 via national party lists. Special rules apply to make it easier for 13 specific national minorities (mostly Roma, Germans and Slovaks) to win individual seats.
The election is expected to be a duel between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's long-standing ruling party Fidesz, which in alliance with the Christian Democratic Party of Hungary (KDNP) currently has 153 seats, and the newly formed conservative opposition party Tisza, which was started by Fidesz defector Péter Magyar.
