Hungary shifting to presidential system? Péter Magyar announces first steps, would consider direct presidential election

The Hungarian President is elected indirectly, by the Hungarian Parliament, and with supermajority. Péter Magyar said he would ask the people about strengthening the position of the President and creating a direct presidential election system. He also shared some further points of his first measures as premier at today’s press conference and in an interview with the public media broadcaster M1.

New president needed, new parliament to form early May

President Tamás Sulyok must resign after the formation of the new government, Peter Magyar, leader of the election-winning Tisza Party, said on Wednesday after meeting with Sulyok in the Sándor Palace. Magyar said Sulyok was “unfit to embody the unity of the Hungarian nation, unworthy to be the guardian of the rule of law in Hungary and unfit to serve as a moral compass or role model for the Hungarian people”.

Péter Magyar said he would ask the people about strengthening the position of the President and creating a direct presidential election system. A stronger president could limit the power of the Hungarian prime minister and strengthen checks and balances.

Hungary’s new parliament is expected to hold its inaugural session on May 4, May 6 or May 7, Magyar added.

New media law, new media authority, new public media needed

All Hungarians deserve a public media that broadcasts reality, so a new media law, a new media authority and the development of professional conditions will be needed for the public media to really fulfil its function, Magyar said in an interview with public radio on Wednesday. Magyar said that the last time he had visited the public media was more than a year and a half ago, on 26 September, 2024, and that it had taken the votes of more than 3.3 million people and a mandate unprecedented in the history of modern Hungarian democracy to have him back in. He said that in the last two years he, his family, his close relatives and civilians were “smeared” on M1 “morning, noon and night”.

“So we will need a little time for a new media law, a new media authority and the creation of professional conditions for the public media, the public media that operates with hundreds of billions of forints, to really fulfil its function,” he said.

Policies Péter Magyar would keep or introduce

Péter Magyar promised to keep all good policies of the previous government and implement new measures for the wellbeing of the people, including:

• family support schemes would not only be preserved but expanded;
• they will retain and expand the regulated utilities price scheme to include firewood;
• the new government will review the fourfold increase in system usage fees;
• HUF 1,000bn would be ploughed into road developments;
• he would discuss the building of a high-speed rail line connecting the Polish capital and Budapest with Donald Tusk;
• HUF 1,000bn would be earmarked for energy efficiency programmes for homes and businesses;
• another HUF 1,000bn would go to hospitals. Meanwhile, Viktor Orbán’s alleged plan to close 38 small rural hospitals will not be implemented;

EU funds and energy supply

Magyar also promised to bring home the frozen EU funds worth more than EUR 22 billion. Priority actions include adopting anti-corruption measures, joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and establishing a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, as well as a separate body to oversee the entire public sector.

He vowed that his government would only accept conditions that served the Hungarian people, adding that they would truly represent Hungary’s interests in Brussels, Strasbourg, Moscow and Washington”. The incoming prime minister said the EU funding would support job-creating investments, SMEs and family-owned businesses, giving a boost to smaller communities around the country.

The previous government had 16 years to build and improve the capacity of interconnectors at the borders in order to enable Hungary to be supplied with oil from more than one direction, Magyar said. The Adriatic pipeline could have been used and expanded, and an agreement reached with Croatia, rather than “a cold war situation” created, he added. He said that the Druzhba pipeline, which brings Russian crude to Hungary via Ukraine, would remain a supply source.

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