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Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has proposed amending the country’s constitution to allow for the removal of its appointed president, potentially paving the way for direct elections.
“Just as Viktor Orbán has abandoned the Hungarian people, so Tamás Sulyok, whom he appointed, has abandoned the Hungarian republic,” Magyar announced on Monday morning in front of the Sándor Palace.
“The office of the president of the republic is more important and more powerful than any individual head of state. It is in Hungary’s interest that the presidency should regain the authority that has been battered in recent years by its silences, its untenable decisions and its omissions.”
“I have informed the president that if he maintains his position and does not resign of his own accord, then today I will inform the Tisza MPs of his decision and we will immediately launch the necessary procedures.”
The prime minister held the press conference after talks with head of state Tamás Sulyok. He did not tell journalists what kind of constitutional amendment the government is preparing, but he did announce that it would not be a tailor-made law directed at one person, but a framework that would also allow other state leaders to be removed from office.
Magyar will discuss the next steps with Tisza’s MPs later today, though a decision may not come for some time.
The prime minister said he would like citizens to have a greater say in electing the president. That could mean a direct presidential election, but other solutions are also possible; as Magyar said, the details still have to be worked out with his fellow MPs.
“The Fundamental Law is crystal clear: the president of the republic embodies the unity of the nation and safeguards the democratic functioning of the state,” Magyar said, before setting out at length why, in his view, Sulyok has failed to live up to that role.
“Sulyok kept silent when the ousted prime minister talked about bugs, a big clean-up and a shadow army; it should have been the president’s job to state that there are no citizens in the Republic of Hungary who need to be ‘cleaned away’,” Magyar said, adding that he had asked the president about Viktor Orbán’s comments only to be told that they were merely a political opinion, so there had been no need for him to speak out.
“The Hungarian republic does not belong to Tamás Sulyok, or to Viktor Orbán, or to any one party or political system; it is the shared creation of the Hungarian people,” the prime minister declared.
Several counter-protesters also turned up at the press conference. They repeatedly disrupted the prime minister with shouts, and he called on the police to remove anyone committing disorderly conduct at the event.
Sulyok refuses to resign
On Sunday, Tamás Sulyok announced in a Facebook video that he was not prepared to resign as president, and that he “wants to continue to cooperate with the government and to help with the legislation needed to draw down EU funds”.
He added that he would wait for the opinion of the Venice Commission in his case, and also signalled that the new government must proceed by constitutional means.
In response, Magyar posted on Facebook himself.
“Tamás Sulyok has never stood up for the downtrodden, for those under attack or for the rule of law,” he wrote. “Even on Children’s Day he is only defending his monthly 6.3 million forint salary. Instead of apologising.”
The prime minister set a deadline of 31 May for the head of state and several senior public officials to resign. Among them are Péter Polt, president of the Constitutional Court, together with the court’s 14 other members; Zs. András Varga, president of the Supreme Court; György Barna Senyei, head of the National Office for the Judiciary; László Windisch, president of the State Audit Office; Csaba Balázs Rigó, head of the Competition Authority; and András Koltay, president of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority.
On Sunday afternoon, Magyar minister used a Facebook post to remind the public of the looming deadline, and also announced that he and the the justice minister would visit the president at 8am on Monday.
Earlier, Péter Magyar had described Sulyok as “Viktor Orbán’s puppet president”, saying it had been obvious from the very first moment that Orbán wanted a head of state whose top priority was loyalty to Fidesz, and for whom defending the constitution and the unity of the nation came last.
As recently as Friday, Sulyok was still insisting that he would not resign and had turned to the Venice Commission.
In Hungary’s constitutional system, the president is elected by parliament and wields largely weak, ceremonial powers, though the office does play a role in constitutional review.
The presidents elected thanks to Fidesz’s constitution-shaping majority – Pál Schmitt, who was forced to resign after a plagiarism scandal, János Áder, Katalin Novák, who stepped down over a paedophilia pardon scandal, and Sulyok – all backed Orbán’s governments in every respect.
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