{"id":550057,"date":"2026-07-20T05:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550057\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T05:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:50:12","slug":"hungarian-pm-nominates-jewish-chess-grandmaster-judit-polgar-to-serve-as-interim-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550057\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungarian PM nominates Jewish chess grandmaster Judit Polgar to serve as interim president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said Sunday that he had nominated Jewish Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgar to serve as an interim president, after outgoing president Tamas Sulyok signed a constitutional amendment a day earlier to end his term in office.<\/p>\n

Sulyok was asked to sign the amendment as part of Magyar\u2019s drive to dismantle former prime minister Viktor Orban\u2019s bastions of power, after ousting the strongman in an April election landslide.<\/p>\n

Parliament, where Magyar\u2019s party has a two-thirds majority that allows it to change any laws, will elect a new president who will be in office until a planned new constitution takes effect, or for a maximum of five years.<\/p>\n

In a post on Facebook, Magyar said that Polgar is the right person to serve as head of state, as her \u201cname has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur country needs unity, peace and a president whom every Hungarian can be proud of,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe presidency is not a job, not a workplace, but the highest service. The president\u2019s task is to serve and represent every Hungarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Polgar\u2019s fame, he said, \u201cis not due to her political affiliation or connections, but to her exceptional talent, diligence, exemplary burden-bearing, and integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

If she accepts the role, which Magyar expressed hope that she will, she will serve in the role until the adoption of a new Hungarian constitution.<\/p>\n

He expressed hope that she will accept the invitation, saying it would be \u201ca huge honor\u201d if she does.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tHungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar speaks during a joint press conference with Poland\u2019s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, not in picture, in Warsaw, Poland, on May 20, 2026. (AP Photo\/Beata Zawrzel)<\/p>\n

Judit Polgar and her two sisters \u2014 Zsuzsa (Susan) and Zsofia (Sofia) \u2014 along with Ildiko Madl won the 1988 Chess Olympiad for Hungary\u2019s female team, ending Soviet dominance.<\/p>\n

Judit Polgar played in tournaments against men and became one of the top players in a male-dominated sport. She is the most talented woman to have ever played the game and the only woman to have crossed the 2700-rating threshold that many consider the \u201cSuper GM\u201d distinction.<\/p>\n

In February, \u201cQueen of Chess,\u201d a documentary about Polgar, was released on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will meet her tomorrow, and will ask whether she is ready to serve our country in a new role until the new constitution is passed,\u201d Magyar wrote in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudit Polgar\u2019s name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no immediate public comment from Polgar.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said Sunday that he had nominated Jewish Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgar to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[249930,42,8249,43,184912,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-550057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chess-grandmaster","tag-headlines","tag-hungary","tag-news","tag-peter-magyar","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}