{"id":340211,"date":"2024-02-27T10:41:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T09:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/02\/27\/ungheria-nuovo-presidente-tamas-sulyok\/"},"modified":"2024-02-29T17:22:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T16:22:24","slug":"hungary-new-president-scandal-novak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/02\/27\/hungary-new-president-scandal-novak\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary elects new President, following scandal that brought down Nov\u00e1k"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Hungary has a new President\u00a0following the child sexual abuse scandal that led to the resignation of the now-former head of state,\u00a0Katalin Nov\u00e1k<\/strong>. The National Assembly in Budapest yesterday afternoon (Feb. 26) – following the\u00a0decisive vote<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on the ratification of Sweden’s protocol of accession to NATO – appointed\u00a0Tamas Sulyok, the\u00a0 Constitutional Court chief, as Hungary’s new President<\/strong>\u00a0to end the political crisis that throughout February\u00a0threatened to overwhelm the power system<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of Prime Minister\u00a0Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Ungheria<\/a>
Protests in Heroes’ Place in Budapest, February 16,\u00a02024 (credits: Attila Kisbenedek \/ Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being able to count on two-thirds of the deputies in Parliament, the Fidesz-led governing coalition easily gave the green light to the appointment of Sulyok, who\u00a0has already been sworn in and will become President of Hungary on Tuesday (March 5)<\/strong>. Sulyok has been a judge of the Constitutional Court since 2014 and became its\u00a0President two years later. In his post-election speech as head of state, he promised transparency in his decisions on pardons, even though opposition parties have criticized his appointment since Sulyok has no political experience and because – despite the office being purely ceremonial –\u00a0the protesters’ demands for the direct election<\/strong>\u00a0of the President of the Republic have not been heeded.<\/p>\n

The presidential pardon scandal in Hungary<\/h3>\n
\"Katalin<\/a><\/figure>\n

From left: former President of Hungary, Katalin Nov\u00e1k, and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen (Jan. 15, 2024)<\/p>\n

Over the past few weeks – and particularly last weekend – tens of thousands of people in the country’s major cities strengthened their protests against the power system that was responsible for the\u00a0child sexual abuse scandal. It all stemmed from the pardon granted by the now former-president Nov\u00e1k and supported by the resigning Justice Minister Judit Varga to the deputy director of a state orphanage<\/strong> jailed for covering up a series of child sexual abuses at the facility. The pardon was\u00a0granted last year, but the news only became public knowledge in recent weeks, sparking public\u00a0outrage.<\/p>\n

\"Ungheria<\/a><\/figure>\n

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n (credits: Szilard Koszticsak \/ Pool \/ Mti \/ Afp)<\/p>\n

Public pressure forced the resignation of those directly responsible and close allies of Orb\u00e1n, even though street demonstrations did not subside.\u00a0“The year 2024 could not have started in a worse way. Our President of the Republic has submitted her resignation to Parliament.\u00a0<\/strong>This is like a nightmare, and it is taking a toll on us all,” the Hungarian premier said in his\u00a0State of the Union speech<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Saturday (Feb. 17). “We must submit to the National Assembly a new legislative package on child protection” Orban, who\u00a0is now at risk politically<\/strong>, promised. Not so much for the government’s survival — in Parliament, the majority is not in doubt, and elections are in 2026 — but rather for the prospects of a\u00a0strengthening Fidesz in the next legislature in Brussels<\/span><\/a>, should he fail to recover from this misstep in time for the European elections in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Assembly in Budapest has appointed former Constitutional Court chief Tamas Sulyok to succeed the president who resigned following the wave of public protests triggered by news of the pardon of the deputy director of a state orphanage convicted of child sexual abuse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":340174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25833,25835,27032,27033],"class_list":["post-340211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-viktor-orban-en","tag-catalin-novak-en","tag-tamas-sulyokat"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340215,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340211\/revisions\/340215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}