BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s president put his signature on a constitutional amendment Saturday that brings his time in office to an early end, closing out a bitter power struggle between him and the country’s new government, which had been working to remove officials tied to the previous administration of Viktor Orbán.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who dealt a decisive defeat to the long-serving Orbán in an April election, had repeatedly demanded that President Tamás Sulyok — an Orbán appointee — step down. Magyar’s argument was that Sulyok had failed in his duties as president by not pushing back against what he described as antidemocratic actions carried out under Orbán’s government.
After Sulyok declined to resign, lawmakers from Magyar’s pro-European, center-right Tisza party moved forward this week with a constitutional amendment calling for an immediate end to his presidency. Sulyok had five days to sign the measure into law and did so on the last possible day before the deadline.
In a Facebook video posted Saturday evening, Sulyok — whom Magyar had often called Orbán’s “puppet” — described being compelled to sign the amendment as “lasting proof that the fundamental values of a free society, the rule of law, democracy, the principle of power-sharing, have been trampled on in the interest of power.”
His term will come to an official close at midnight Monday, at which point Parliament Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer will automatically take over his responsibilities. Lawmakers will then have 30 days to elect a new president.
Since coming to power in May, Magyar’s administration has moved aggressively to dismantle what he refers to as Orbán’s “mafia” — removing political appointees and institutional leaders seen as having enabled Orbán’s style of governance.
The new government has already suspended the news operations of Hungary’s public television and radio, which Magyar has characterized as a “propaganda factory” for Orbán’s party, and shut down Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Office, an agency that Orbán’s critics viewed as a mechanism for silencing dissent and intimidating independent media.
Beyond removing Sulyok, the constitutional amendment also introduced judicial reforms, established an office to investigate financial misconduct during the Orbán era, and set a 12-year term limit on members of Parliament.
Orbán responded to the signing on Facebook Saturday, writing that “tyranny is no longer a threat, but a reality.” He added, “If this could be done to the president of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe.”
Magyar, for his part, pushed back in his own Facebook video statement Saturday, saying the passage of the amendment meant “we have fulfilled several of our important commitments and returned what the Orbán regime tried to take away from the Hungarian people for many years.” He announced he would bring his party together Monday to begin discussions on who to nominate as the next president.
