{"id":301045,"date":"2026-07-20T20:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301045\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:33:25","slug":"hungarys-chess-queen-declines-peter-magyars-offer-of-role-as-president-peter-magyar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301045\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s chess queen declines P\u00e9ter Magyar\u2019s offer of role as president | P\u00e9ter Magyar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hungarian chess \u2060legend Judit Polg\u00e1r has said she will not accept the nomination for president, only a day after the \u2060prime minister, P\u00e9ter Magyar<\/a>, \u2060said he \u200bwould ask her to take up the largely ceremonial role.<\/p>\n

Magyar had said he would meet Polg\u00e1r on Monday to discuss the matter. \u201cOur country needs unity, peace and a president that all Hungarians can be proud of,\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201cJudit Polg\u00e1r\u2019s name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polg\u00e1r, 49, said later in a Facebook post that she was grateful to \u200cbe asked but added: \u201cI do not feel enough strength within me to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, \u200bso I am unable to accept the request.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polg\u00e1r \u2013 the subject of the documentary Queen of Chess<\/a>, released in February \u2013 is the only female player to have been ranked in the world\u2019s top 10 of the male-dominated sport.<\/p>\n

She is \u2060the only woman to have crossed the rating of 2700, the \u200bthreshold that many \u200bconsider the definition of a super grandmaster.<\/p>\n

Judit Polg\u00e1r aged 12. She was the top-ranked female player for 25 years. Photograph: Yves Forestier\/Sygma\/Getty<\/p>\n

The latest developments come after a months-long standoff<\/a> between the newly elected Magyar and Tam\u00e1s Sulyok, the president appointed during the former leader Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s time in power.<\/p>\n

Since his landslide victory<\/a> in April, Magyar has repeatedly called on Sulyok to step down, accusing him of being a puppet who had failed to stand up for the country as Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rightwing, nationalist Fidesz party was criticised for weakening democratic institutions and undermining the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s parliament \u2013 where Magyar\u2019s centre-right Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority \u2013 voted last week to back a constitutional amendment that included an immediate end to Sulyok\u2019s term<\/a>. From there, Sulyok had five days to sign off on the amendment.<\/p>\n

The manoeuvre was criticised by several rights groups in Hungary, including Human Rights Watch, which said<\/a> the rushed constitutional changes to oust the president were \u201creminiscent of [the] Fidesz era\u201d.<\/p>\n

Magyar, however, has insisted that the changes are needed as part of a wider push to loosen Orb\u00e1n\u2019s lingering grip on the country.<\/p>\n

As news emerged that Sulyok had signed the legislation, bringing an end<\/a> to his time in office, Magyar proposed nominating Polg\u00e1r as his replacement. The idea was first floated in an open letter signed by 16 prominent Hungarians, including Ern\u0151 Rubik, theinventor of the Rubik\u2019s Cube.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Born in Budapest, Polg\u00e1r, who will turn 50 in a few days, had been the top-ranked female player for 25 years when she retired in 2014. She became the youngest grandmaster in the world at the age of 15, breaking the record<\/a> set in 1958 by Bobby Fischer.<\/p>\n

She won victories against several male world champions including Garry Kasparov in 2002.<\/p>\n

Since being swept into power on the promise of \u201cregime change\u201d, Magyar and his party have moved swiftly to dismantle the bastions of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s 16 years in power, from suspending news broadcasts<\/a> by public media outlets with ties to the former prime minister to abolishing<\/a> the sovereignty protection office, which had allowed intelligence services to access information on individuals and organisations without judicial oversight.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting from Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hungarian chess \u2060legend Judit Polg\u00e1r has said she will not accept the nomination for president, only a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-301045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}