Winner of last week’s parliamentary elections in Hungary, Péter Magyar, has vowed to suspend public media news services once his party comes to power.
The Tisza Party leader, who won a decisive victory over outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Obrán on Sunday, securing enough votes for a super majority in Budapest’s parliament, appears intent on solidifying his grip on power in short order.
Magyar, a former member of Orbán’s Fidesz Party, said on Monday that he would use his large majority to amend the constitution to impose term limits and retroactively apply the law solely to ban Orbán from ever challenging for the top position again.
On Tuesday, the likely next prime minister said that his next move would be to revoke the news service programmes from Hungary’s public media, which he has long accused of being sympathetic to Orbán and his Fidesz party.
Appearing on Kossuth Radio’s Good morning, Hungary! programme, Magyar compared Hungarian public media to state news in North Korea and propaganda produced by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, the Magyar Nezmet newspaper reported.
The Tisza leader also appeared on M1, Hungary’s Magyar Televízió public media service’s flagship channel, and said he would shut down M1 news, which he described as a “factory of lies”. Magyar said that he would work with other parties in the parliament to establish an “independent, objective, impartial” replacement.
The incoming premier appears to be using a similar playbook to that of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, which, after coming to power in 2023, launched a police raid on public broadcaster TVP, which was seen as sympathetic to the previous conservative government.
In another vector of power consolidation, Magyar demanded on Tuesday the resignation of Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok, an ally of outgoing PM Viktor Orbán. Sulyok came to power in 2024 following the resignation of former President Katalin Novák after it was revealed that she had issued a pardon to a school administrator convicted of covering up child sexual abuse.
The scandal saw Magyar split from the Fidesz party and join the previously lowly Tisza Party, which was catapulted to relevance on the back of his resignation and condemnation of the Orbán government he once served. This comes despite Magyar’s former wife also resigning over the pardon.
An early indirect presidential election was held in Hungary on 26 February 2024, following the resignation of Katalin Novák. Incumbent President of the Constitutional Court Tamás Sulyok was elected with two-third majority.
While Magyar seems to be making quick work of solidifying his authority within Hungary, it remains to be seen how much independence he will exercise on the international stage, with his incoming government being beholden to Brussels after having campaigned on securing the release of the tens of millions of euros in aid money that was frozen in response to Orbán’s conservative agenda.
Magyar, therefore, may be forced to decide whether to keep his promise to keep asylum seekers out of Hungary or bend to the will of the EU leadership on migration to secure the frozen funds.
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