Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok is rejecting Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s call for voluntary resignation, saying he sees no scope for such a move “despite threats”. This follows from an interview for the German political science magazine Cicero, from which the Hungarian portal index.hu quoted, TASR informed its correspondent in Budapest.
- Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok refuses to resign despite Prime Minister Magyar’s urgent calls.
- Sulyok claims that the prime minister responded to the offer of cooperation with personal pressure to leave.
- The President describes the threats of impeachment by the parliamentary majority as an attack on the constitutional order.
- Prime Minister Magyar starts the process of impeachment of the president and announces a month-long constitutional change.
- The Fidesz party supports Sulyok and accuses the prime minister of dictatorship and blackmail.
Sulyok said that he offered the prime minister cooperation, but Magyar, he said, instead demanded his resignation and did so in a very personal way.
Oath and Constitution
In the interview, the president recalled that, like the prime minister and members of parliament, he took an oath to uphold and uphold the constitution. According to his statement, the basic law precisely defines the powers of the head of state and enshrines that the president does not have executive power, but fulfills tasks and has powers in the field of public law.
Sulyok called the statements of the prime minister, who announced the possibility of his dismissal through the parliamentary majority, as threats and an attack on the constitutional order. The president repeated that he refuses to resign, as according to him there are no constitutional reasons for his resignation.
No withdrawal
At the same time, Sulyok emphasized that neither democracy nor the rule of law can function on the principle of threats and pressure ultimatums. He added that the oath obliges him to preserve the constitutional order and act within its limits.
The tension between the head of state and the government culminated in a meeting on Monday morning at Sándor’s Palace, where Prime Minister Magyar and Minister of Justice Márta Görögová met with the president. After winning the April parliamentary elections, Magyar repeatedly called on Sulyok to voluntarily resign by May 31.
Magyar promises to change the constitution
After negotiations with the president, the prime minister declared that, according to him, the Republic of Hungary does not belong to Tamás Sulyok, one political party or a specific political regime. Subsequently, he announced that he would inform the parliamentary club of his party Tisza about the position of the head of state and immediately start the process leading to the impeachment of the president.
At the same time, Magyar announced that the ruling party plans to amend the constitution. He claimed that it will not be about so-called personalized legislation aimed at individual persons, but about the restoration of the Hungarian rule of law and democracy. According to him, this legislative process should last about a month.
Accusations of “puppetism”
In the past, the prime minister referred to the president as a “puppet” and a “remnant of the Orbán regime.” Already in mid-May, Sulyok clearly declared that he will not resign and that he intends to fulfill his mandate and oath in full.
The Fidesz party also entered the open conflict, which issued a statement in support of the president on Sunday. In it, she described Prime Minister Magyar’s actions as “open blackmail” and “dictatorship” and claimed that he was attacking the head of state in an unconstitutional manner.
A sharpened political dispute
According to Fidesz, the prime minister continues on the path of dictatorship and illegal ultimatums. The party thus sided with President Sulyok against the current government, which made the political conflict over the future of the head of state even more acute.
