Overview
- Parliament voted in a secret ballot to elect András Baka as president on Tuesday, Aug. 11, with 140 lawmakers supporting him and six opposing while Fidesz and its ally KDNP boycotted the vote.
- Baka is a former Supreme Court chief justice who was removed under Viktor Orbán and later won a case at the European Court of Human Rights that found his dismissal violated his rights.
- The vote follows a July constitutional amendment that cut short the term of Orbán ally Tamás Sulyok, a maneuver Tisza used to clear the way for a new head of state.
- Since taking office in May, Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Tisza government has suspended public broadcasters’ news services, closed the Sovereignty Protection Office, launched probes into alleged Orbán-era abuses and imposed new term limits as part of a wider institutional reset.
- Baka is due to be sworn in on Aug. 19, and although the presidency is mostly ceremonial the office can send bills back to Parliament or to the Constitutional Court, a power that could shape Hungary’s legal overhaul even as opponents continue to dispute the process’s legitimacy.