P. Magyaras, who won a landslide victory on Sunday with a promise to implement a “regime change” after 16 years of V. Orban’s rule, has accused the unpopular president Tamas Sulyok (Tamaš Šujok) and other top state officials of being puppets of his predecessor.
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Pro-European conservatives are seeking to remove T. Sulyok by rushing to eliminate the concentration of power characteristic of V. Orban’s rule, which he himself called illiberal. This rule received praise from US President Donald Trump, but was considered corrupt by many.
Lawmakers from P. Magyaras’s “Tisza” party stood and applauded loudly for half a minute after deciding to remove T. Sulyok by 139 votes to 6.
“This means that we (…) have completed the constitutional reform of the Orban regime,” P. Magyaras said after the amendment was adopted.
Now everyone is eagerly waiting to see if T. Sulyok will try to delay his resignation by refusing to sign the amendment, which could provoke a constitutional crisis.
“Now he has five days during which he must either resign within the set deadline or sign this amendment,” P. Magyaras said. “There is no other option.”
On Monday, T. Sulyok accused P. Magyaras of spreading “false statements aimed at manipulating public opinion.”
V. Orban’s party “Fidesz” boycotted Monday’s parliamentary session and condemned the 12-point amendment proposed by P. Magyaras as autocratic. Such accusations were often directed at V. Orban himself during his tenure.
“Today they are targeting the president, but tomorrow they could do the same to anyone else,” V. Orban wrote on the social network Facebook, having left Hungary ahead of the vote to observe FIFA World Cup matches in the United States.
Some human rights observers also criticized these changes.
The organization Amnesty International stated that T. Sulyok has the “right to due process,” while Human Rights Watch said such manipulation resembles the “Fidesz” era.
Since his party “Tisza” holds a two-thirds majority in parliament, P. Magyaras does not need opposition support to rewrite the constitution.
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67% want T. Sulyok to step down
After the election victory, P. Magyaras repeatedly called on T. Sulyok to resign, calling the 70-year-old unfit for the position because he failed to resist V. Orban’s divisive rhetoric and attacks on the rule of law.
If the president does not sign the amendment within five days, “Tisza” will initiate his impeachment process in parliament, P. Magyaras said.
Although the Hungarian president has mostly ceremonial powers, T. Sulyok can veto laws or send them to the Constitutional Court for review, but cannot block a constitutional amendment.
According to a May poll by the 21 Research Center, 67% of Hungarian voters want the president to step down.
Lawyer Andras Baka, former president of Hungary’s Supreme Court, told AFP news agency that P. Magyaras’s methods would be justified if they led to a new constitutional order.
“In a country governed by the rule of law, such extraordinary measures cannot be used, but Hungary under Orban has become a captured state,” said A. Baka, whose term was terminated in 2011 by a similar legislative act after he expressed concern about the court reforms carried out by Fidesz.
After the vote, P. Magyaras reiterated his promise to draft a completely new constitution following nationwide consultations, which “if possible, will include all Hungarians.”
The amendment adopted on Monday also sets a 12-year or three-term limit for lawmakers, preventing several well-known opposition politicians from running for re-election in 2030.
The amendment also calls for the creation of a National Asset Recovery and Protection Service, granting it broad powers to fight corruption, which observers considered endemic under P. Magyaras’s predecessor.
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