Hungary’s Magyar rushing to use ‘overwhelming mandate’
Hungarian opposition leader and election winner Peter Magyar has been assured by the country’s president that his new government could come to power in early May, an accelerated timeline for the end of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year reign.
Following the landslide victory in Sunday’s elections in which Magyar and his center-right Tisza party won a two-thirds majority in parliament, the opposition leader pressed for the transfer of power to happen as quickly as possible.
According to Hungarian law, the opening session of the new parliament, which must elect a new prime minister, must be held no later than May 12.
After a private consultation with President Tamas Sulyok on Wednesday, Magyar told reporters outside the presidential palace in Budapest that Sulyok had assured him that Magyar would be the next prime ministerial candidate and that the opening session would likely be scheduled for May 6 or 7.
“(The President) thinks, and I think everyone does, that it is in the interest of the Hungarian nation for a change of government and a change of regime to happen as quickly as possible after such an overwhelming mandate from the voters,” Magyar said. he said.
Magyar has promised to make a major change in Hungary’s government structure and create separate ministries of health, environmental protection and education, which did not exist under Orban.
Appearing on Hungary’s public broadcaster for the first time in nearly two years on Wednesday morning, Magyar said his new government would suspend news programs that served for years as a mouthpiece for Orban’s Fidesz party “until independent, objective and unbiased conditions are met.”
“One of the key elements of our program is that this factory of lies will end when the Tisza government is established,” he told the presenter.
Magyar called on Orban’s government to act protectively in its final weeks and not make decisions that could threaten Hungary’s interests or hinder the work of the new government.
Sulyok said that he asked the president, who was elected by Orban’s majority in the parliament, to resign after the formation of the new government, and that Sulyok would consider this.
“I reiterated to him that he is not worthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation and is unfit to be the guardian of the law,” Magyar said, adding that if Sulyok does not resign, his new government will make constitutional amendments to remove him “along with all the other puppets installed by the Orban system.”
Since Tisza won a two-thirds majority of seats in parliament, the new government will have the power to change the constitution and roll back many of Orban’s policies.
