Hungary parliament votes to remove president from office

The Hungarian parliament voted to remove President Tamás Sulyok from office, a figure widely regarded as a loyalist of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who stepped down in April after 16 years in power.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, leveraging its two‑thirds parliamentary majority, pushed through the 17th constitutional amendment, thereby concluding President Sulyok’s term and that of Constitutional Court President Péter Polt.

The day marked the most dramatic session in parliament since the new government assumed office in early May, following its surprising landslide victory over Orbán’s Fidesz party on 12 April.

Sulyok now has five days to either sign the amendment — effectively his own political death warrant — or refer it to the Constitutional Court.

Should Sulyok refer the matter to the court, Magyar has indicated he will initiate impeachment proceedings, which would automatically suspend Sulyok from office.

Alternatively, Sulyok could resign to avert a constitutional crisis, a course the new government has been urging him to take for the country’s benefit.

Members of the nowopposition Fidesz party withdrew from parliament ahead of Monday’s vote, accusing the Tisza party of fostering tyranny.

Fidesz contends that the amendment bestows the government with arbitrary authority to dismiss any public official instantly.

“The great irony is that Fidesz has fallen out of line with its own concept of power,” said Péter Rona, a former opposition presidential candidate, to the BBC.

The 2011 constitution, drafted by Orbán’s government, enshrined the principle that “the winner takes all”.

From 2010 to 2026, Fidesz reshaped the Hungarian state to its own will and populated ostensibly independent state positions with party loyalists, capitalising on its two‑thirds parliamentary majority.

The 141 Tisza deputies in parliament offered a standing ovation as the vote results were announced.

The amendment also removes Constitutional Court judges aged over 70 and bars deputies who have served three parliamentary terms from standing again — a provision affecting more than half of the current Fidesz deputies.

“I fully agree with the removal of the president,” said András Baka, former head of the Supreme Court, to the BBC.

He argued that Hungary was governed by the rule of law from 1989 to 2010, after which Fidesz captured state institutions and established an authoritarian regime.

“And it is now very difficult to dismantle a sophisticated authoritarian regime that was designed to survive even after electoral defeat,” Baka said.

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