The man who succeeded Orb\u00e1n, P\u00e9ter Magyar<\/a>, has begun enacting some of the reforms he promised on the campaign trail: taking \u201cpropaganda broadcasts\u201d on public media off air and removing Orb\u00e1n\u2019s allies from the heads of the prosecution, police and military.<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest fight, however, was the one Magyar picked with the then president, Tam\u00e1s Sulyok, who was forced to sign a constitutional amendment ending his own term<\/a> in July. After Sulyok, who was appointed by Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Fidesz party, left his post, the new prime minister called for suggestions. \u201cLet\u2019s make a decision together,\u201d he said in a Facebook video.<\/p>\n P\u00e9ter Magyar speaking in front of EU and Hungarian flags. Photograph: Robert Hegedus\/MTI\/AP<\/p>\n Lawmakers from the ruling Tisza party will elect the new president in parliament, but Magyar encouraged \u201cpublic figures, NGOs and civilians\u201d to put forward names. Less than 24 hours after opening the discussion, however, Magyar said he had nominated the chess grandmaster Judit Polg\u00e1r for the role. The move prompted a popular backlash criticising his hastiness and Polg\u00e1r, subject of the Netflix documentary Queen of Chess, turned him down<\/a>.<\/p>\n Magyar apologised for the \u201cmiscommunication\u201d, but polls in the aftermath showed his party\u2019s popularity down by 3%. \u201cThe process is still imperfect,\u201d says Imre \u00d3n\u00e1di, a 55-year-old architect who created a Facebook page and group to support the candidacy of the conservative politician P\u00e9ter M\u00e1rki-Zay, who unsuccessfully ran against Orb\u00e1n<\/a> in the 2022 general election.<\/p>\n \u00d3n\u00e1di welcomed Polg\u00e1r\u2019s refusal \u201cnot because she isn\u2019t the right person, but because her nomination was announced without discussion\u201d. He thought Magyar\u2019s apology was a good sign. \u201cIt seems they take into account what the population says. That\u2019s democracy, after all,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n For now, emboldened by the grassroots success of the Tisza party in the April election but lacking any official channel for recommendations, that discussion is happening in social media posts, online polls and open letters. However, it is unclear whether these popular recommendations are reaching Tisza and how the administration intends to handle them.<\/p>\n While the government has set up an online consultation space to discuss an update on traffic regulations, there is no official channel for presidential recommendations, despite Magyar\u2019s encouraging words.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a political fever,\u201d said J\u00e1mbor, undeterred. \u201cI\u2019ve been voting since I was 18. But I finally feel like I have a say in what happens in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every day<\/p>\n Sign up to Headlines Europe<\/p>\n A digest of the morning’s main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Any Hungarian over the age of 35 with voting rights can become president, but Magyar has said his candidate must be independent of political parties. He has met two popular contenders: the well-known historian Ign\u00e1c Romsics and Botond F\u00fcl\u00f6p, a lawyer who uncovered the child abuse pardon scandal that ended the presidency of Katalin Nov\u00e1k in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is expected that Tisza\u2019s 141 parliamentarians will propose and swear in a candidate before 19 August. Technically, Fidesz, which has 44 members of parliament, could nominate its own candidate, but the party has said it will not take part in the election as it believes Sulyok\u2019s dismissal was unlawful. No other party has enough MPs to nominate someone for the position.<\/p>\n Amnesty International Hungary believed that the removal of Sulyok was justified, said \u00c1ron Demeter, the head of communications and campaigns in the organisation\u2019s Budapest office. \u201cBut we could debate Tisza\u2019s method,\u201d he added, arguing that the government could have pursued impeachment to remove the president instead of pushing through an amendment to the constitution.<\/p>\n With its so-called supermajority in parliament, Tisza \u201cshouldn\u2019t do the same things Fidesz did, with the same tools, just because their goal is nobler\u201d, Demeter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eszter J\u00e1mbor, a 46-year-old content creator who focuses on sex education, had a different kind of question for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-725672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782599590_285_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n