Hungary’s seventh president elected – UPDATE

The National Assembly elected Tamás Sulyok as President of the Republic on Monday. The President of the Constitutional Court, who was the only candidate for the post, received 134 votes in favour in the secret ballot.

The opposition (DK, Momentum, Socialists, Jobbik, Párbeszéd) withdrew at the start of the presidential election, with a total of 146 MPs casting their votes. Of these, 7 were invalid votes, while there were also 5 no votes.

Before they voted on the new president, Hungarian lawmakers on Monday accepted the resignation of President Katalin Novák with 196 votes in favour, none against and no abstentions. Novák offered her resignation on Feb 10 after a scandal blew up in connection with a pardon she granted to the deputy director of an orphanage convicted of covering up child abuse.

• Today was also an important day for NATO: Hungarian Parliament votes in favour, Sweden to join NATO – UPDATE

Tamás Sulyok will take office on 5 March, becoming the seventh President of the Republic since the change of regime. Read also: Who is Tamás Sulyok, Fidesz’ nominee for head of state?

Hungarian governing parties nominate MEP László Trócsányi to replace Sulyok as head of the Supreme Court, details HERE.

After the announcement of the outcome of the vote, the president-elect took the presidential oath of office.

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok. Photo: MTI

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok. Photo: MTI

In a speech after his election, Sulyok said he wanted to build trust through mutual understanding free from prejudice. He said he believed in “the broadest possible transparency” when it came to bestowing awards or granting clemency.

Sulyok promised to work for a fair balance of constitutional fundamental rights and values.

He said the prerequisite for the existence of the state and the nation was mutual trust between individuals and groups of society, adding that he considered national constitutional identity and statehood based on popular sovereignty to be fundamentally important constitutional values.

The president-elect said those in a difficult situation, those unable to care for themselves, the elderly, ill and lonely “can always count on my attention and support”.

Sulyok was born on March 24, 1956 in Kiskunfélegyháza. In 1980, he graduated from the Faculty of Public Sciences and Law of the József Attila University of Szeged.

In 2004, he gained a qualification in European law from Budapest’s ELTE university and obtained a PhD from Szeged university in 2013, his thesis being on the constitutional status of the legal profession, the regulation of the internal market of the European Community and the connections between legal services.

Between 1997 and 2014 he headed a private legal practice, and from 2000 until his election as a constitutional judge in 2014 he was the honorary consul of Austria in Szeged. Since September 2005, he has taught constitutional law as a visiting lecturer at Szeged university.

He was deputy president of the Constitutional Court from April 2015 and in November 2016 parliament elected him as the court’s president.

UPDATE2: Romanian president congratulates President-elect Sulyok