Following the center-right opposition Fidesz party’s stunning victory in yesterday’s national elections, Jewish leaders expressed hope that Hungary’s first non-Socialist government in eight years will both usher in a period of economic growth and clamp down on the growing influence of an increasingly xenophobic far-right faction.

Speaking on Monday, Rabbi Shlomo Koves, associate rabbi of Chabad-Lubavitch of Hungary and executive rabbi of EMIH Unified Hungarian Jewish Congragation, said that, on the whole, the elections spoke well of Hungarian democracy and that the community was looking forward to dealing with the new leadership. He noted that Fidesz party leader Viktor Orbán, who is widely expected to become the nation’s new prime minister, had visited the central synagogue in Budapest two years ago and met with Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.

“We have a good relationship with the Fidesz party,” said Koves. “Its members have voiced support for all of the country’s religious communities.”

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Following the second round of polling April 25, Fidesz claimed the necessary two-thirds parliamentary majority to return to the government following its 2002 ouster. It won 263 seats, five more than the 258 needed to form a coalition.

Also stunning outside observers was the showing of the upstart Jobbik party, a far-right bloc that had ignited simmering tensions by placing blame for the country’s economic downturn on ethnic minorities. Jobbik won 47 seats, 12 seats behind the current ruling Socialist party.

Prior to the elections, Jewish community officials had sounded an alarm over the growth in Jobbik’s popularity, warning of a latent xenophobia spreading throughout Eastern Europe. Just a month ago, rocks were thrown at the home of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shmuel and Dvorah Leah Raskin during a Passover Seder.

But with a center-right party claiming a mandate, officials are optimistic that Fidesz leaders will make good on promises to marginalize the hardliners in Jobbik.

European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor also postulated that should the new government succeed in stimulating the economy, far-right grievances would prove moot.

“I am convinced that the better the performance of the government is,” he told The New York Times, “the weaker the far right will be in the future. As a result of the economic crisis, certain extreme parties are able to deliver a scapegoat upon which to blame all of their ills.”

Zsolt Nemeth, a Fidesz MP and a founding member of the party, told London’s Daily Telegraph that Jobbik’s days were numbered.

“We make it very clear that we have no intention to have any contact with Jobbik, not now or any time in the future,” he said. “We think they are a challenge to democracy.”

For his part, Koves stressed that the Jewish community – which brought out Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel for a historic visit to his native country and its parliament in December – would continue to respond to any acts of anti-Semitism with solidarity.

“The Jewish answer to darkness,” he said, “is to increase the light.”