©picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Kahnert
The Hungarian parliament has approved a constitutional amendment that could remove President Tamás Sulyok from office. With this move, Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s new government is taking a striking step in settling accounts with Viktor Orbán’s legacy.
On Monday, the ruling Tisza party used its two-thirds majority to push the 17th constitutional amendment through parliament. As a result, not only will Sulyok lose his position, but Péter Polt, the head of the Constitutional Court, will also have to step down. For Magyar, this is a powerful signal that the state institutions of the Orbán era are being dismantled.
Putting an end to the Orbán era
Sulyok now has five days to sign the amendment or refer it to the Constitutional Court. If he chooses the latter, Magyar intends to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, which would automatically suspend the president. A voluntary resignation could prevent a constitutional crisis, but Sulyok has so far refused to step down.
The opposition party Fidesz walked out of parliament in protest prior to the vote and called it a prelude to tyranny. The party argues that the amendment gives the government too much power to dismiss civil servants and senior officials on an arbitrary basis. According to Péter Róna, a former opposition presidential candidate, Fidesz is thereby reverting to the logic of its own model of power. The amendment goes beyond just the president. Judges of the Constitutional Court over the age of 70 must also step down, and members of parliament who have served three terms may no longer return to parliament. This primarily affects Fidesz, where more than half of the current members of parliament would fall under this rule.
Magyar presents the move as a necessary purge of the state apparatus after sixteen years of Orbán. His party won by a surprisingly wide margin in April and intends to introduce a new constitution in the coming years. Orbán himself has barely reacted to the defeat, but within Fidesz, unease is growing over his absence and the deep political crisis.
©picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Kahnert