Orbán steps back after a landslide loss, vowing to rebuild Hungary’s ‘national side’
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban He announced in a video posted on social media on Saturday that he would not take his parliamentary seat after this month’s crushing election loss and would instead focus on rebuilding his nationalist-populist political community.
Elections in Hungary on April 12 brought an end to Orbán’s 16-year rule, with voters overwhelmingly voting for his center-right rival who promised to tackle widespread corruption and restore Hungary’s democratic institutions that had been eroded under Orbán.
This rival is the Tisza party, led by Hungary’s new Prime Minister Peter MagyarHe won a two-thirds majority in parliament that would allow him to roll back many of Orbán’s policies.
Since the elections, the long-serving prime minister’s future role in Hungary’s political life and whether he will be able to maintain his role in government remain unclear.
But in a video posted on Facebook, Orbán said his party’s parliamentary faction would “radically transform” following the election loss and would not take the seat.
“Our task is no longer in parliament,” Orbán said, but in the “reorganization” of the political camp, which he called the “national side.”
“I have been leading our community for nearly forty years,” Orbán said. “This camp has always been the most united and harmonious political community in Hungary.”
Magyar has vowed to restore democratic institutions and the rule of law that have eroded under Orbán, and to hold accountable those he says are responsible for overseeing and profiting from widespread official corruption.
When the new parliament is formed on May 9, Orbán will not have a seat among MPs for the first time since Hungary’s transition from state socialism in 1990.
In his statement, Orbán claimed that he would remain the head of the Fidesz party after the congress convened in June to elect the party’s leader.
Magyar’s party won 141 of 199 seats in parliament, the largest majority in Hungary’s post-communist history. Orbán’s far-right, anti-European Fidesz party will reduce its seat count to 52 from 135 before the election.
