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Parliament elected the first female president of Hungary! – UPDATED
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The parliament elected today Katalin Novák, the first female president of Hungary. Novák, the former minister without portfolio responsible for youth and family affairs, received 137 votes of 188 valid ballots. Economist Péter Róna, the opposition’s candidate, received 51 votes. After the announcement of the outcome of the vote, the president-elect took the presidential oath of office. Novák will take office on May 10 as the sixth Hungarian president. She will be the first female president of Hungary.
As a candidate, Katalin Novák said on Thursday that once she gets elected, she will hold the constitution as the foundation of her work. The presidential candidate of ruling Fidesz-KDNP told parliament ahead of the presidential election that she was determined to observe and enforce the constitution, and to work as a guardian to preserve it. Novák said she was ready for the task to represent all Hungarians.
She said the country’s free will was the basis of sovereignty and family represented its cradle. “I will never be willing to give up sovereignty in terms of the nation,” she added.
Novák said the war started by Russia was “indefensible and inexplicable”.
Hungarians want peace and women want to win peace not war, she said.
Novák was born in 1977 in Szeged, in southern Hungary. She graduated from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration with a degree in economics in 2011 before earning a degree in community and French law from the University of Szeged and the Universite Paris X. Novák served as an official of the foreign ministry between 2001 and 2003 before becoming an advisor to then-foreign minister Janos Martonyi in 2010 after the birth of her children.
In 2012 she was appointed cabinet chief of then human resources minister Zoltán Balog before going on to serve as state secretary for family and youth affairs from 2014 to 2020. She was appointed minister without portfolio for family affairs in 2020. Last December, Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán announced that ruling Fidesz would nominate Novák as the next president of the republic.