BUDAPEST, Hungary — Thousands of people took to the streets of Hungary’s capital on Thursday to push back against efforts by the country’s new government to remove President Tamás Sulyok from office. The rally was organized by the far-right Fidesz party and promoted heavily by former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, though Orbán himself did not show up.
Demonstrators crowded around the presidential offices at the grand Sándor Palace in Budapest’s Castle District, voicing support for Sulyok. The new center-right government has pledged to remove him through a constitutional amendment that is scheduled for a parliamentary vote next week.
The amendment would cut short Sulyok’s term in office and also introduce term limits for members of parliament, carry out changes to the court system, and establish a new body to investigate alleged financial wrongdoing during Orbán’s time in power.
Orbán’s 16-year grip on Hungary came to an end following a decisive election defeat in April. The winner of that vote, new pro-European Prime Minister Péter Magyar, has moved aggressively to undo what he describes as Orbán’s “mafia” — removing political appointees and institutional leaders he says helped sustain Orbán’s authoritarian rule.
Magyar has argued that Sulyok, who was appointed during the Orbán era, failed in his presidential duties by not blocking antidemocratic actions taken by Orbán’s government. He made removing Sulyok a central campaign promise and points to his party’s two-thirds majority in parliament as a voter mandate to follow through.
Though the Hungarian presidency is largely ceremonial, the president holds the power to sign legislation into law and can refer bills to the constitutional court for review. Supporters of Magyar’s new government have expressed concern that Sulyok could use those powers to block the administration’s agenda.
One demonstrator at Thursday’s protest, Krisztina Nemerkényi, said the gathering was about more than just one individual. “The point is not whether Tamás Sulyok is popular or not, but that this is simply unacceptable in a democracy,” she said, adding that the protest was “not about the person of Sulyok, but about the office.”
Fidesz lawmaker János Pócs told the Associated Press at the rally that while his party had amended Hungary’s constitution many times — making 15 changes to the document it wrote on its own in 2011 — those changes were made “always in the interest of the country, in order to protect the country, but not for the sake of dictatorship.”
Orbán and Fidesz have characterized the push to remove Sulyok as an attack on democratic principles and the rule of law, and warned it represents an early move toward authoritarian rule — a charge that critics find ironic given Fidesz’s own record in power.
Since taking office in May, Magyar’s government has moved quickly on other campaign pledges as well. It suspended Hungary’s public television and radio news service, which Magyar has called a “propaganda factory” for Orbán’s party. The government also put an eight-year cap on how long a prime minister can serve and removed the heads of the national security and intelligence agencies that operated under Orbán.
Additionally, the new government managed to unlock 16.4 billion euros — roughly $19 billion — in European Union funds that had been withheld from Hungary by pushing through rapid reforms aimed at reversing democratic backsliding that took place during Orbán’s tenure.
