Hungary After Dark: Midnight at Sándor Palace

Tamás Sulyok signed the amendment that ends his presidency. Across Hungary, the guarantees surrounding Viktor Orbán’s political class began to give way.

At midnight tonight, Tamás Sulyok’s presidency ends.

His final consequential act was to sign the legal measure that discharges him from office.

The announcement came in a recorded address released on Saturday evening. Sulyok spoke about law, institutional dignity and arbitrary power, subjects that had rarely shaped his public conduct during his two years at Sándor Palace.

“For me, all power can only be understood within the framework of law,” he said. He described the decision as “the final seal of my respect for the institution.”

Then he signed.

During the previous week, Sulyok had called the Seventeenth Amendment a “breaking point” in Hungarian constitutional history. He said it violated democracy, the separation of powers and the principles of a state governed by law. In his account, the legal order established after the collapse of communism had reached its end.

His formal analysis left little scope for resistance. Hungary’s head of state may challenge defects in the procedure used to alter the Fundamental Law. The office lacks the authority to reject the content of a procedurally valid revision. Once Parliament approved the text, Sulyok concluded that refusal would violate his own obligations.

Viktor Orbán’s institutional design had reduced the presidency’s capacity to restrain a government commanding a two-thirds majority in Parliament. That design now governed Sulyok’s departure.

His term expires automatically at the beginning of Monday, July 20. Ágnes Forsthoffer, the Speaker of Parliament, will exercise the powers of the head of state until lawmakers choose a successor. Hungary will have no vacancy in the presidency. The authority will be peacefully transferred at midnight.

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The vote

Parliament approved the amendment on Monday evening, July 13. The final count was 139 votes in favour, six against and no abstentions. Mi Hazánk supplied the six opposing votes. Fidesz and KDNP boycotted the sitting. Fifty-four members did not participate.

Fidesz had shaped Hungary’s foundational law throughout its period in government. On Monday, the party declined to defend that architecture from the parliamentary benches. Orbán was already travelling to the United States for the final stages of the football World Cup. Mi Hazánk registered the only formal opposition.

The package passed through a chamber in which Tisza controls 141 of 199 seats, and its reach extends well beyond the change at Sándor Palace.

The new provisions terminate Sulyok’s term and reinstate an age ceiling that will remove four sitting Constitutional Court judges on September 1, including the body’s president, Péter Polt. They alter the selection of senior judicial leaders, restore review over significant tax and budget legislation, and remove the Budget Council’s authority to prevent adoption of the state budget.

Nineteen references to two-thirds legislation have been deleted or rewritten. Large areas of policy will return to ordinary parliamentary control. The text also grants formal standing to the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which the administration intends to use to recover public property and funds transferred during the Orbán period.

The independent Parliamentary Guard will disappear. Future presidents of the Kúria, Hungary’s Supreme Court, and the National Office for the Judiciary will receive shorter terms. New Constitutional Court judges will serve for 9 years. Members of the Court will select their own president for a term of three years.

The revision reopens bodies that Fidesz had shielded from electoral turnover.

Polt’s departure carries particular symbolic weight. Before moving to the Constitutional Court, he served as chief prosecutor and led an office repeatedly criticised for its treatment of corruption involving senior figures around Fidesz.

To many Hungarians, his position represented an assurance that politically sensitive cases could be delayed, narrowed or lost inside the procedure. Prosecutions will depend on investigators, prosecutors and courts. His departure still ends an arrangement closely associated with the former governing elite’s protection.

The provision that has attracted the greatest controversy establishes a lifetime limit on parliamentary service. Anyone who has completed twelve years as an MP or won election three times will become ineligible to stand again. Previous service counts. Current members may finish the present term.

A European Parliament review published in 2025 found no equivalent limit in any of the European Union's national legislatures. Term limits remain rare across parliamentary democracies. Systems that use them generally focus on consecutive service instead of permanent exclusion.

Hungary’s clause counts the time accumulated before the rule existed. Its immediate effect falls heavily on politicians from the defeated governing parties.

Péter Magyar defended the measure with a phrase drawn from property law. “A parliamentary seat is not an entail,” he said, referring to an inheritance designed to remain within one family.

I can’t say that I disagree with that statement.

The first consequence

Before the vote began, Gergely Gulyás resigned as leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group.

Gulyás has served as an MP since 2010. The revised eligibility rule prevents him from standing in the next election. He will retain his current seat and remain a member of Fidesz. He said the largest opposition caucus needed a leader capable of taking it into the next campaign.

His resignation provided the first immediate political consequence of the new limitation.

Only nineteen of Fidesz’s forty-four MPs remain eligible to lead the caucus into the 2030 election under the new rule. Senior KDNP politicians and several members of Mi Hazánk are also affected. Tisza entered Parliament only this year, leaving its entire caucus untouched.

Orbán’s previous service places him beyond the new ceiling. He declined his seat after the April election. The revised clause prevents a return at a later date.

The administration presents the rule as generational renewal. At the next election, voters will be unable to return dozens of current MPs regardless of their local support.

Gulyás described the package as “the end of constitutional democracy and the start of tyranny.” The statement marked a striking reversal for a politician who had repeatedly defended Fidesz’s use of parliamentary sovereignty to reshape the state.

Eligibility rules determine which choices reach voters. A lifetime restriction based on prior service bars an entire class of candidates from campaigning before it begins.

Orbán’s political order had been designed to survive electoral defeat. That history explains the pressure for rapid change.

The president who rarely said no

Sulyok’s defenders now describe him as an independent constitutional guardian removed for political reasons. His record offers limited support for that account.

No consolidated official tally has been published showing every law he signed, returned or referred to the Constitutional Court. Available evidence depicts a head of state who occasionally objected to narrow defects and generally accepted the direction set by the governing majority that selected him.

He approved the restrictions on Pride demonstrations and publicly defended his decision. During other institutional disputes, he relied on a narrow interpretation of presidential jurisdiction and procedural review.

His use of the pardon power was exceptionally limited. He granted none in 2024, four during the first half of 2025, and none during the second half.

Sulyok approached the presidency as a lawyer with a narrow interpretation of its authority. He occasionally returned documents for correction. His tenure produced few confrontations over the concentration of state power.

That record gives his farewell address unusual resonance. The reasoning that governed his caution eventually required him to authorise his own removal.

“The rule of law over arbitrariness,” he said, describing the principle that should govern political authority.

Sulyok invoked it with new urgency as his own term approached its end.

Constitutional surgery

Hungary’s Fundamental Law may be revised by a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Tisza won that majority in a democratic election. Judicial review of such changes is largely confined to procedural defects. The president cannot exercise a substantive veto without an express legal power.

The need for institutional intervention is substantial. Orbán’s governments appointed loyal officials to long terms, placed ordinary policy behind supermajority requirements and preserved political influence beyond the life of a particular Parliament. Without revisions, the elected administration would remain unable to direct large parts of the state.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has accepted that democratic reconstruction may require replacing captured officeholders. Amnesty International Hungary summarised its concern in one sentence: “The goal is good, the tools and methods are not always.”

The principal legal difficulty arises from personalisation.

The text ends the term of one identifiable president. It displaces serving judges under a restored age rule. It counts prior service by known political figures when determining future eligibility. For many Hungarians, foundational law has become a means of managing immediate personnel changes.

European courts have examined related methods with caution.

In Baka v. Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights found that the premature termination of the Supreme Court president’s term through judicial restructuring violated his rights. The European Court of Justice reached a related conclusion after Hungary ended the term of data protection commissioner András Jóri. The same court ruled against the abrupt reduction of the retirement age for judges, prosecutors and notaries.

Those precedents do not decide Sulyok’s case. Hungary’s president is elected by Parliament and occupies a distinct legal position. The judges affected in September will leave at 70, the earlier national threshold, rather than the sharply reduced age used during Fidesz’s judicial purge.

They show the vulnerability created when structural change is tailored around particular officeholders, though they can also be read as a sign of something rare in democracies: that these laws will apply to Tisza as well.

The package restores fiscal review, changes judicial appointments and removes entrenched vetoes. Parliament has also enlarged its authority over individual terms and access to future elections. Both consequences will shape public judgment of the transition.

A political class disperses

The revision removed one official and shortened the political future of dozens more. Elsewhere, members of the former governing elite were beginning to choose their own exits.

On Wednesday, Péter Szijjártó resigned from Parliament and began working for BYD, the Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer whose Hungarian expansion he had championed as foreign minister.

His portfolio covers international external relations and the development of new business divisions. BYD describes the appointment as a global group position. His salary, benefits, contractual terms and regular workplace remain undisclosed.

Szijjártó helped negotiate and announce the subsidies, infrastructure and political support that made BYD a flagship of Hungary’s China strategy. He appeared alongside company executives, promoted its factories and research plans, and presented its investments as evidence of successful economic diplomacy.

Known public commitments connected to BYD projects total approximately HUF 92 billion, around $290 million.

The sum includes HUF 925 million for the original Komárom bus plant, HUF 3.1 billion for a later expansion, roughly HUF 1 billion for the Fót battery-assembly operation, HUF 46 billion for infrastructure around the Szeged industrial park, HUF 21 billion for site preparation and HUF 20 billion in planned support for the company’s Budapest headquarters and research centre.

The direct subsidy for the Szeged passenger-car factory has not been disclosed. The HUF 92 billion total combines grants, planned assistance and public infrastructure. It reflects the scale of the Hungarian state’s financial commitment to BYD’s expansion.

The appointment raises obvious revolving-door concerns. Szijjártó helped construct the policy framework that brought BYD into Hungary. He now works for the company that benefited from it.

The Russian file

The following day, the administration confirmed that it had begun reviewing Szijjártó’s relationship with Russia.

Magyar said officials were examining classified Foreign Ministry material and documents held elsewhere in government.

The existing record gives officials extensive material to examine.

Szijjártó received Russia’s Order of Friendship from Sergei Lavrov in December 2021. He continued visiting Moscow after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with international reporting counting sixteen trips by the middle of this year. He handled negotiations with Gazprom, promoted the Russian-financed Paks II nuclear project and intervened repeatedly in European debates over sanctions.

Further allegations concern the handling of sensitive information. Reports have suggested that Hungarian officials transmitted details from European Union discussions to Lavrov. Direkt36 documented extensive Russian penetration of the Foreign Ministry's networks and reported that senior officials had been informed of the compromise.

Szijjártó denies serving Russian interests or sharing classified European material.

Orbán in America

Orbán followed the week’s events from the United States.

He departed Hungary on Monday, travelling through Frankfurt toward the closing stages of the World Cup. Video confirmed his attendance at the France-Spain semifinal in Dallas, where he appeared with relatives and close associates. His planned itinerary also included the England-Argentina semifinal in Atlanta and Sunday’s final in New Jersey.

From the United States, Orbán posted a black-and-white image bearing the words “Democratic Hungary, 1990-2026.” After Sulyok signed, he wrote: “Tyranny is no longer a threat but a reality.”

At the height of his authority, Orbán could convert political decisions into legal text. This week, he responded through social media as a new parliamentary majority altered the system he had created.

The documented sequence needs little embellishment. Fidesz boycotted Parliament. Szijjártó joined a Chinese corporation. Gulyás resigned from the caucus leadership. Sulyok approved the provision ending his own presidency. Orbán watched football in America and posted his objections online.

Hungary’s former heart of power was scattered across airports, stadiums, corporate offices and farewell videos.

Following the money

The legal changes unfolded alongside a growing collection of criminal complaints, administrative audits and formal inquiries.

Transparency International Hungary filed a complaint regarding HUF 281.2 billion ($887 million) invested through the Baross Gábor Capital Program. The organisation argues that the structure of the investments could leave public money beyond meaningful scrutiny for an extended period.

The Education Ministry submitted a 40-page complaint regarding KRÉTA, Neptun, and the Poszeidon records system. According to the government, expenditure on the three platforms has exceeded HUF 100 billion, approximately $316 million, since 2019.

Officials allege that competitors were gradually excluded, that the use of the systems became compulsory, that intellectual property rights accumulated in private hands, and that contracts increasingly proceeded without meaningful competition. Nearly HUF 20 billion in additional agreements was reportedly signed shortly before the election.

The companies say direct price comparisons ignore differences in modules, services and support purchased by individual universities and schools.

The operator of KRÉTA reported revenue approaching HUF 8 billion in 2024. At Budapest University of Technology and Economics, monthly support costs for Neptun reportedly increased from approximately HUF 18 million under an earlier arrangement to about HUF 67 million under a fifteen-month contract signed in December.

The Integrity Authority has filed a complaint concerning the Gondosóra program. The tax authority is investigating suspected budget fraud. Parliament has opened an inquiry into the central bank foundations and their property investments.

The growing paper trail already marks a change. Ministries, independent organisations, and investigators are producing referrals, audits and documentary records. Allegations of stolen wealth are entering the slower domain of contracts, source code, procurement files and bank transfers.

“What was stolen from the nation, the state will take back,” Magyar said when presenting the package.

The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office will play a central role. Its appointments, evidentiary standards and avenues for legal challenge will determine whether it earns public confidence.

The honeymoon

Public opinion gives the administration considerable latitude.

A 21 Research Centre survey of 1,500 respondents, conducted between June 23 and July 1, placed Tisza at 57 per cent among the total population and 67 per cent among decided voters. Fidesz registered 20 and 24 percent respectively.

Medián’s late-June survey produced a wider gap. Among decided voters certain to participate, Tisza stood at 73 per cent and Fidesz at 21 per cent. 67% of respondents said the country was moving in the right direction.

The surveys measured party support and the public’s view of the country’s direction.

The numbers align with a wider mood of relief. Bodies that had appeared immovable are changing. Senior officials protected by lengthy terms are losing their positions. Elections have begun to produce visible consequences again.

That relief grants the administration time and political authority. Procedural legitimacy will determine how long that confidence lasts.

The package allows the next president to serve until the adoption of a new constitution, subject to a maximum term of five years. Parliament has thirty days to choose Sulyok’s successor. A nomination requires forty MPs. The first ballot requires a two-thirds majority. A failed first round leads to a runoff between the two leading candidates. The winner assumes office eight days after the result is announced.

Tisza holds enough seats to determine the outcome. Consultation can still influence the quality and public standing of the eventual nominee.

A name for Sándor Palace

Magyar says the next president should serve “without any party-political past or affiliation” and draw moral authority from public trust. By that standard, my own wildcard pick would be Andrea Pető.

Pető is a historian and sociologist at Central European University and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her work examines women’s political history, fascism, sexual violence, anti-gender movements, academic freedom and the manipulation of national memory. She has spent her career studying the pressures that illiberal governments place on knowledge, equality and democratic institutions.

The presidency carries limited executive authority and considerable symbolic reach. Pető would bring scientific seriousness, a documented commitment to women’s equality, an understanding of anti-LGBTQ+ political mobilisation, and a willingness to confront flattering national myths. Her appointment would give Sándor Palace an independent intellectual voice at a moment when Hungary is rebuilding the public meaning of its institutions.

As I finish editing this article, Judit Polgár’s name has already moved into serious public circulation. Sixteen prominent figures from Hungarian science, culture and sport have written to Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer, urging Parliament to elect the chess grandmaster, praising her strategic intelligence, international standing and independence from party politics.

Polgár may emerge as the consensus candidate. Pető remains my personal recommendation. She fits the presidency Magyar has described and the values I would like the office to represent: science, equality, intellectual independence and historical honesty. But Polgár would also be a more symbolic, unifying, and patriotic option.

Midnight

At midnight, Forsthoffer automatically assumes the powers of the presidency. No separate inauguration or oath is required. Another deputy Speaker is expected to handle her parliamentary duties while bills awaiting presidential action will pass into her hands.

Sulyok will leave Sándor Palace. Four Constitutional Court judges will follow in September. Gulyás will complete a parliamentary career that the new eligibility rule prevents him from extending. Szijjártó has already entered corporate employment.

Orbán remains the leader of Fidesz, supported by loyal media holdings, local organisations, private wealth, and experienced personnel. The Seventeenth Amendment has begun dismantling some of the legal guarantees surrounding his political network.

The governing bloc is restoring fiscal review, changing judicial appointments and removing entrenched vetoes. It has also claimed broad authority over serving officials and future electoral eligibility. The durability of Hungary’s democratic reconstruction will depend on how that authority is exercised after the present relief subsides.

Sulyok said his signature represented “the rule of law over arbitrariness.” At midnight, the officials who removed him inherit responsibility for those words.

The instruments that brought his presidency to an end remain in their hands.

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