Hungarian election winner Péter Magyar announced that his government will seek to amend the country’s constitution to bar outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from running for another term.
In an apparent bid to solidify his grip on power in Budapest, Tisza Party leader Péter Magyar said that once he has formed a government, he will seek to impose term limits on prime ministers, the local Portfolio news outlet reported.
Having one a two-thirds supermajority in the Hungarian Parliament in Sunday’s elections, Magyar will likely have the votes needed to amend the constitution to impose such limits.
Crucially, the likely incoming PM said that the change to the law would be retroactive, meaning that it would prevent outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from seeking another term in office.
At just 63 years old, it is not out of the realm of possibility for Orbán to attempt to launch a comeback as he previously did after initially losing power in 2002.
However, Magyar said that because Orbán served as prime minister for 20 of the last 36 years, he should be barred from running again.
“A Prime Minister will only be able to serve two terms, eight years,” he said.
Further cementing his grip on the levers of power, Magyar also said on Monday that he would suspend all public news media, which have been accused of favouring Orbán and his Fidesz party. The Tisza leader said that they would be suspended until their “objectivity” could be ensured.
The move is reminiscent of the 2023 police raid on Poland’s state broadcaster TVP, ordered by the incoming Brussels-friendly government immediately after defeating the long-ruling conservatives. The heads of several broadcasters were dismissed by the new government and some stations taken off the air.
While Magyar is moving quick to solidify his standing in Budapest this week, his first major external challenge presented itself on Monday. According to the Financial Times, the European Commission issued the incoming PM with a list of 27 demands if he wishes to unfreeze the €35 billion in funds that Brussels refused to give the previous Orbán government.
The demands reportedly included that Budapest come into compliance with the bloc’s asylum laws. This may set up Magyar for his first showdown with EU leadership, given that he campaigned as an immigration hardliner. However, opponents have noted that Magyar’s party has been tied to Soros-linked open-borders advocates.
The political neophyte may determine that the juice of backtracking on his campaign stance may be worth the squeeze of securing the billions in funding to bolster the struggling Hungarian economy.
During the campaign, the EU has faced accusations from the United States of inappropriately withholding funds from Hungary to interfere with Orbán’s re-election bid, effectively blackmailing Hungarian voters into backing Magyar.
Despite facing the prospect of being barred from reclaiming his premiership, Orbán said on Monday that the “work starts today” and that he plans on defending his achievements from the opposition benches in the parliament.
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