The Tisza parliamentary group will vote on Saturday on whom to nominate for President of the Republic, Andrea Bujdosó, the group’s leader, told MTI on Thursday.
New President’s name to be announced this week
She said the deadline for submitting an official nomination was 10 AM next Monday and that the process would be organised accordingly. The politician said the selection of the nominee, or nominees, was still under way, but that the group’s aim was to choose from several candidates at its meeting. Bujdosó did not disclose any names. She added that discussions were still taking place over how to introduce their candidate for head of state.
The Tisza group proposed on Wednesday that parliament elect a new president next Tuesday. Under the 17th amendment to Hungary’s Fundamental Law, the mandate of Tamás Sulyok, the former president, ended at midnight on 20 July. His powers are being exercised on an interim basis, in accordance with the provisions of the Fundamental Law, by Ágnes Forsthoffer, the Speaker of Parliament.
Parliament must elect a new president within 30 days. The Tisza group justified its proposal on the grounds that it would enable the head of state to be elected within the deadline set out in the Fundamental Law.
Since Tisza has 141 MPs out of the 199 in the Hungarian Parliament and the next Hungarian President must be elected with a two-thirds majority, it is virtually certain that MP Magyar’s candidate, to be announced on Saturday, will be elected.
Péter Magyar’s nomination of Judit Polgár sparks public outrage
No official nomination for the post has yet been submitted. On 19 July, however, 16 figures from the worlds of science, culture and sport wrote to the Speaker of Parliament urging her to invite Judit Polgár, the chess player, to become president. That same day, Prime Minister Péter Magyar wrote on Facebook that he would regard it as an honour if Polgár accepted the invitation. The chess player announced the following day that she would not take up the post.
Magyar’s Facebook nomination of Judit Polgár caused serious outrage even among his supporters. They said that somebody can play chess exquisitely, but that does not mean they would be a good President of the Republic who can unite the quarrelling nation. Furthermore, a poll even said the scandal caused by PM Magyar’s announcement cost several hundred thousand possible votes for Tisza.
Here are PM Magyar’s possible candidates
In the period that followed, the Prime Minister met Fülöp Botond, a lawyer who drew media attention to the presidential pardon scandal in 2024 under the name “Vidéki Prókátor”, in the company of Bálint Ruff, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office. He subsequently held talks with Ignác Romsics, a Széchenyi Prize-winning historian, academician and university professor, about “the nation’s most pressing questions”. Most recently, on Wednesday, he met András Baka, the former president of the Supreme Court.
At the end of July, the Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) movement said it would nominate Máté Tóth, a lawyer specialising in energy law, for the presidency.
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New President to address parliament after election on Tuesday
Once Hungary’s next president of the republic is elected on Tuesday, they will address the national assembly, Anikó Haller Nagy, the acting speaker of parliament, told MTI after a meeting of the house committee.
Haller Nagy added that the president is not expected to make an introductory speech before their election. She added that the election itself is scheduled for 9:40am on Tuesday, the full procedure taking between 60-90 minutes. According to parliament’s website, nominations for president can be submitted to parliament before 10am next Monday, to be assessed by the house committee at 12:30.
Under the constitution, a minimum of one fifth of all deputies is required for a nomination to be valid, and each deputy can make no more than one nomination. Haller Nagy also said next week’s extraordinary session will be addressed by Prime Minister Péter Magyar ahead of the agenda.
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