Hungary has a new president. The previous president of the Constitutional Court, Tamás Sulyok, was elected head of state in parliament on Monday with a two-thirds majority.
The 67-year-old, nominated by the government faction, received 134 yes votes and only five no votes and will officially take office on March 5.
Sulyok is known as a supporter of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In 2023, the Constitutional Court ruled under his leadership against the Central European University (CEU), which had been active in Budapest for years and which had to move most of its activities to Vienna from 2019 due to intimidation by the government of Orban.
The opposition left the room
Not least because of this, the elections in parliament were boycotted by the opposition parties, which called for a direct election of the head of state. The MPs left the plenary hall before the vote.
Controversial pardon brought down predecessor
Sulyok succeeds Katalin Novák, who resigned. As reported, last year she pardoned a man convicted of complicity in the sexual abuse of minors in an orphanage. When the case became public, Novák, but also Orbán’s government, was confronted with massive protests.
Source: Krone
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