Budapest, Apr 3 (IANS): Hungarians went to the polls on Sunday to elect new members of the 199-seat Parliament, which could give incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban a fourth consecutive term.

Some 7.8 million voters are eligible cast their votes at more than 10,000 polling stations until 7 p.m., reports Xinhua news agency.

Preliminary results are expected towards Sunday evening.

Polls predicted a narrow win for Orban's Fidesz party and its allied Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP).

Orban, 58, had been in power between 1998 and 2002 and came to power again in 2010.

At a final campaign rally on Friday, he mobilised his voters by promising them peace and calm in the shadow of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and called on his supporters to give an all-out effort on the election day.

The opposition alliance held its event in central Budapest on Saturday.

Peter Marki-Zay, the alliance's candidate for Prime Minister and currently the mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, said that his political formation was "at the gate of victory".

Marki-Zay, a 49-year old father of seven, won the opposition primary elections held in October 2021.

In the last elections of 2018, Orban's coalition Fidesz-KDNP won 133 seats, securing a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Hungarians living abroad started voting by mail on March 19.