Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, said after a meeting with President Tamás Sulyok that if the president does not resign, his government will take the necessary legal steps to remove him from office, Reuters reported.
Hungary’s center-right Tisza party defeated longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in parliamentary elections in April and has vowed to remove several of Orbán’s appointees.
Magyar has called on Sulyok, who was elected in 2024 by Orbán’s Fidesz party, to resign, accusing him of failing to show national unity on key issues and of serving the interests of Orbán and his party. Sulyok has refused to step down. Magyar said he had told the president that if he maintained his position and did not resign, Tisza MPs would be informed of the legal proposals as early as the 1st of June and would immediately initiate the necessary procedures. He added that the legal process would take about a month, and that
all puppets who had participated in the undermining of the rule of law and democracy would be removed from office.
Orbán’s party has accused Magyar of issuing an illegal ultimatum, and has said that Sulyok is serving a legal mandate that runs until 2029 and cannot be removed from office. Sulyok previously headed Hungary’s Supreme Court, and was also elected to that position by Fidesz in 2016.
The role of the president in Hungary is largely ceremonial, but Sulyok has the power to return laws to parliament for reconsideration or refer bills to the Constitutional Court for review, which could significantly delay Tisza’s planned reforms. Magyar has indicated that he will use his party’s majority in parliament to amend the constitution and force Sulyok out of office.
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