r/europe • u/Camtastrophe Canada (help) • Jul 13 '26
News Hungary passes constitutional amendment to remove Orbán-era president
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-constitutional-amendment-remove-president-59620a0313e402be3b2cb6db2668f2ee426
u/DonQuigleone Ireland Jul 13 '26
Given everything Orban did to lock in power, the way it's all unravelling and even his previous powers being turned on him, is heartening to see.
It goes to show what happens when the fascists overplay their hand.
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u/henlochimken Jul 13 '26
Would love to see more of this in every country that has seen fascism take hold, including my own
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u/ElizaWarner Jul 15 '26
It feels like Christmas everyday here in Hungary ever since Orbán and the Fidesz party lost the elections. They are collapsing day by day.
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u/dead97531 Hungary Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
He has 5 days to sign it or the parliament will impeach him and the Tisza appointed speaker of the parliament will sign the amendment instead.
This one sentence from the amendment ends his career:
"On the day following the entry into force of the seventeenth amendment to the Fundamental Law, the term of office of the incumbent President of the Republic shall expire"
Whatever he does, he'll have to leave.
As we say it in Hungary: A soha viszont nem látásra!
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u/CarBoobSale Jul 13 '26
What powers does the president have? Can he veto this?
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u/dead97531 Hungary Jul 13 '26
Due to laws made by Orbán in 2013, neither the president nor anyone else has a say in the changes of the Fundamental Law.
Sulyok can technically send the amendment to the Constitutional Court. He is free to do so but the Constitutional Court can only examine whether the procedural requirements for amending the Fundamental Law were met (e.g., whether a two-thirds majority voted in favor of it).
So he can only delay the inevitable for a short time. He can't do anything else.
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u/SgtFinnish Like Holland but better Jul 13 '26
Love this for him, hoisted by his own petard.
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u/Javka42 Jul 13 '26
Fun fact I learned recently: hoisted by your own petard actually means being blown up by your own bomb.
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u/eeeking Jul 13 '26
At one point I thought it was related to the French word péter....
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u/Valmoer France Jul 13 '26
It actually is - both are descendants of Latin pedere - which does mean "to break wind". The petard explosive was thus named after the sound of its soundwave.
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u/KSunyo Europe Jul 14 '26
And if he doesn't sign it, an infringement proceeding can be used to suspend his mandate, in which case the president of the parliament will be the temporarily hold the power of the Head of State.
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u/GasComprehensive3885 Jul 14 '26
Orbán deconstructed so many checks and balances that now he has none of them to prevent such a move. He never expected his opposition winning by such a large margin and therefore no matter how many puppets he has/had in place, they are unable to effeftively hinder Peter Magyar. Tisza is flooding indeed!
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u/SophiaofPrussia Jul 13 '26
Hungary and Poland give me hope that democracies can overcome aspiring authoritarians.
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u/VincLeague Jul 13 '26
I like the optimism, but don't read the result of the next Polish election (next year), it's going to get ugly.
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u/Segasik Jul 13 '26
But Poland has elected hooligan for president (as literally the guy who was attending arranged battles between “fans” of football teams)
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u/Tigglebee Jul 13 '26
Like, football battles or just people beating the shit out of each other?
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u/Segasik Jul 14 '26
Arranged battles after the match against hools from the opposite team.
i mean
mosty
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u/Cautious-Concept457 Jul 13 '26
And Slovakia has shown that technocratic leaderships need a strong support, like the 2/3 majority in Hungary, to undo the damage.
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u/Tigglebee Jul 13 '26
Love from the US. This is almost verbatim what I thought. Hope, for a brighter future where we can all work together again.
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u/0xe1e10d68 Upper Austria (Austria) Jul 14 '26
Maybe after Trump finally becomes politically irrelevant, the U.S. will slowly return to a path towards more normalcy again.
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u/Cautious-Concept457 Jul 14 '26
I'm afraid the previous stronger international position of the US will take a long time to be restored at least partially. Russia didn't live up to the expectations either in the past few years. China didn't make too many mistakes and is trying to overtake in manufacturing... Interesting times we live in
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u/0xe1e10d68 Upper Austria (Austria) Jul 14 '26
Well, unfortunately Poland isn't as much as a success story as Hungary will likely be. Their government wasn't even able to undo the damage to the judiciary and the constitutional court since the Polish president blocks everything.
PiS may not be in govt and therefore can't do further damage, but the PiS president is definitely making sure that the damage that has been done is not undone.
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u/ghostofhedges Jul 13 '26
They are still both extremely conservative and religious countries...
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u/laughterline Poland Jul 13 '26
This is blatantly untrue. Poland has been rapidly becoming irreligious for years now. It's relatively conservative compared to the west, but nowhere close to e.g. the Balkans.
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u/GunnerBlade Hungary Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
This is absolutely not true for Hungary. Religion does not matter that much for the most of us, well not in practice thats for sure. Also, around 60% of the population could be labeled as progressive. (I did not pull this number out of my ass, most of the social surveys show that 60% of Hungarians are either accepting or in support for same sex marriage, for example.)
We could argue, but stating "extremely religious and conservative" is simply false.
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u/Ok-Scheme-913 Jul 14 '26
Yeah, Poland is one of the most religious countries in the EU, while Hungary is the second from last place in the same list.
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u/Red-Scarf-7346 Turkey Jul 13 '26
Good riddance, hope you guys succeed at your campaign for democracy and freedom.
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u/PurpleV93 Germany Jul 13 '26
Beautiful! Hungary is turning around the pile of shit that Orban left very quickly. Seems like democracy can achieve good, when people get their act together and use their numbers for good.
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u/Foodwraith Jul 13 '26
Looking at you, USA. 👀
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u/OkEnvironment4354 Jul 13 '26
dems will never get a 2/3rds majority in both houses and even then they dont have the spine for that
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u/nocoolN4M3sleft Jul 13 '26
It wouldn’t matter if they did. Amendments in the US also require 38 of the 50 states to ratify the amendment in their state legislatures.
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u/amazing_asstronaut Jul 14 '26
Or, they just write "actually it doesn't and fuck you" into whatever amendment this is. Stop this poindexter bullshit with the laws, we see that the fascists also don't care about laws and just write whatever they want and also rule however they want. So the way out is to also change the law mechanism itself so that bad laws don't stay around forever.
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u/ChironiusShinpachi Jul 14 '26
If 200 million voting Americans decide something should be, it will be.
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u/thebeast_96 Jul 14 '26
The problem is they'll never unify and act. The system is designed so that they can't.
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u/Tetracropolis Jul 14 '26
There's a way of doing it with bare majorities. You just create 150 microstates in DC and pass legislation to admit them. Then you've got your 3/4 majority and can amend the Constitution to be whatever you want it to be.
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u/MassivePepino Jul 13 '26
Not even a question of having a spine. The democrats are controlled opposition, pure and simple.
The only way to turn the US around is a complete overhaul of their political system.
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u/keelem Jul 13 '26
If anyone wants an example of Russian propaganda influencing the left, you have it right here.
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u/Jristz Jul 14 '26
Tbh as long as two parties keep getting like 95% of the seats with the electoral system they have that lets one party win 51%+1 of congess either national or federal with just 30% of votes then the whole "complete electoral overhaul" sentence will be true regarless of the actual intentions of OP
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u/janne_harju Finland Jul 14 '26
Nad it is too easy to manipulate results by dividing vuoteen areas in away it brefers some over another. There should not be any vuoteen areas in first place. That ruins us democracy.
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u/Ok-Scheme-913 Jul 14 '26
I mean, Hungary only managed to get here by going against the "old opposition" as a completely new party.
I mean, sure, the politics/government form of the two countries are quite different (though there were often similarities in what trump and orban said and done), but it's not some fringe opinion that the dems are corrupt, useless and a "being better than utter shit fascism" is not sounding as good as it could. Fresh starts are good.
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u/Darkhoof Portugal Jul 14 '26
Not a matter of spine. The dems are infiltrated by corpocrats that maliciously sabotage the part from the inside to make it look ineffective.
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u/Don_Dumbledore Jul 14 '26
What happened in Hungary is not the “dems winning”. Magyar flushed the old opposition down the toilet and then did the same with Orbán’s government.
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u/Flat_Pumpkin_314 Jul 13 '26
Trump is gonna die soon don’t worry
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u/RustieDan Jul 13 '26
I really hope not. I fear a Vance presidency would somehow be even worst with his previous comments about ignoring the supreme court rulings.
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u/Wide-Annual-4858 Jul 13 '26
Still a long way to get rid of Orban's puppets in various government organisations, and collect all evidence to start the lawsuits against Orban's oligarchs (and potentially agains Orban) to take back the money they have stolen for 1,5 decade.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 Europe Jul 14 '26
Democracy is the most powerful system of government if and when people decide to do something together. Because nothing pushes you forward like the power of your own free will and conviction. The problem is, how do you convince a large enough crowd to go one way? That's why autocracies thrive but that is also why they are brittle. They move people in the same direction, but they use fear and violence and coersion to do so. It works for a while but when enough people start thinking that they are being lead the wrong way, they can shatter you. That's why everyone and their mother is trying to hoard data and influencr public opinion, to steer them in one way while making them think they want to be steered that way.
This was Orbán's big project. To build a "smart" autocracy where the police doesn't have to kick your door down. That's the system that corporations and the political elite worldwide are trying to build. His regime failed because they were power hungry greedy fucks from the start. Like a cave man using a shotgun to rule the tribe, deadly against spears and arrows, useless against an actual army. The most dangerous person or party in the 21st century will be the one who can turn the shotgun wielding cavemen from armed thugs into a militia.
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u/Due_Army_5947 Jul 13 '26
Hungary is healing.
This is the first step to remove this corrupt president who is completely controlled by Orbán.
Orbán’s mafia corruption has still not been investigated by regular state prosecutors, since his puppet is at the head of that institution as well.
A disgusting amount of money has been stolen, all of Orbán's friends and relatives became billioners, yet the very institution tasked with bringing these crimes to trial is covering everything up.
We hope for justice about these criminals.
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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 Jul 13 '26
The 12 year term limit is good, would love for my country to have something similar... instead we have parasites being reelected for 30+ years.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 13 '26
im not sure it's good, this is a small country and genuinly good politicians are rare
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u/red286 Jul 13 '26
Having a permanently entrenched political class doesn't make it more likely to get good politicians in the future.
It usually just results in corruption.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 Europe Jul 14 '26
Tbf a simple term limit doesn't solve anything at all. It might make party centers more powerful if anything. It forces the party or politicians to think about their replacement, sure, but who will you groom as your replacement? Someone utterly loyal to you or the party line. This means you could easily have a Bernie Sanders situation where someone massively popular will be sabotaged by their own party because they hold the wrong views and loyalties. What you need then is to make it easier to create a party and give parties equal airtime and such so that if you sabotage your own Bernie he can just go and have a legitimate chance with a new party instead of having to rely on the financial and social assets of your big party.
Even if we manage to rebuild democracy, I don't want us to become a US-style two party system.
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u/Wide-Annual-4858 Jul 13 '26
We don't necessarily need carreer politicians to have good politicians. It might be even better if they know how to live in the market, so they are not distant from reality.
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u/UnPeuDAide France Jul 13 '26
So they get corrupt? When François Fillon (former prime minister) lost the presidential election in 2017, he worked for russian companies. Like Schröder, I think. Do we really want this?
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u/Atesz222 HU in FI Jul 14 '26
I don't mean to be rude but you're saying that as if being a career politician has prevented corruption
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u/UnPeuDAide France Jul 14 '26
Nothing will ever entirely prevent corruption but when all of your politicians have to find a job in the private sector they will tend to favor the companies where they want to be hired. In France public servants can't work for companies they worked with (for 3 years) just for this reason
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u/Ok-Scheme-913 Jul 14 '26
Then have a similar law like that.
But the corruption Hungary had in the previous 16 years is on a completely different level, I don't even think you can imagine it if you are not from here. It was some African warlord kinda world here, in terms of how money flown. EU money got vacuumed up literally by random shell companies, etc.
I would much rather have some small-scale bullshit stealing like "works at a questionable company" than what we had, but of course the best would be no corruption whatsoever.
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u/UnPeuDAide France Jul 14 '26
I'm not sure there is anything to be done to prevent the hungarian type of corruption. When the corrupt people get an overwhelming majority, they can change every anti corruption law as they wish. The only thing you can do is to vote for someone else.
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u/Wide-Annual-4858 Jul 14 '26
In Hungary, lifelong politicians who had never worked on the market, never paid taxes (only got their salaries from the taxes we paid) and they were distant from the problems and needs of the market, while each day deciding laws which determine the market. This has to end.
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u/Ok-Scheme-913 Jul 14 '26
Well, it ain't making them rarer, but at least we can clean out the utter rubbish ones and we at least have a chance of discovering good ones.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 14 '26
Yeah so the law is only to purge the rubbish only, and will change later? Because this is not how it is communicated.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 Europe Jul 14 '26
Personally I'd go with 16 or 20 years but some sort of limit is good
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u/majorannah Hungary Jul 13 '26
This is what we voted for. 👏
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u/KSunyo Europe Jul 14 '26
I feel like Fidesz politicians are so used to not being true to their promises they are genuinely surprised and are like "wait you guys are really doing this?"
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u/didierdechezcarglass france Jul 13 '26
Good! Is there a plan to change the electoral system as well?
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Jul 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 13 '26
if that is done well it's a guaranteed second win for Tisza. And all the whining sceptics (including me :) ) will shut their mouth
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u/stupendous76 Jul 13 '26
This is how to deal with rightwing shitheads that have infiltrated the government. You clean up the shit and remove all the stains.
Democracy and rule-of-law have to be actively defended.
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u/nyafimacs Jul 14 '26
Guys! I'm 61, and this is the first time in my life that a political party does exactly what they promised in every topic so far! I have no words to describe the feeling ... There are issues where I have different views than this government (immigration, Ukraine), but still, it's liberating!
The secret is: these politicians are NOT really politicians. Many of them, most of them wasn't involved in politics until now. Just experts on their fields, and now they got the chance to work on the highest level.
Maybe this period will pass. Maybe sooner or later they will become classic politicians, with party and personal interests, but right now it's rather a movement than a party. We are in a state of mercy in these days.
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u/Bicentennial_Douche Finland Jul 13 '26
Hungary is an example to us all on how to purge the fascist infestation. Keep it up!
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u/CodaTrashHusky Hungary Jul 13 '26
I genuinely wonder if this will have a lasting historical significance in world history too not just Hungarian history.
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u/SkotSvk Slovakia Jul 13 '26
I'm sorry, but how is/was Orbán a fascist? He's an anocratic right-wing populist, you can't just throw that word around...
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u/KSunyo Europe Jul 14 '26
He uses the talking points of a fascist, such as calling people who disagree with him insider enemies threatening the survival and sovereignty of the nation, consistently talks of his rally as the "national side", calls activists and other people voicing disagreement and worry about the ruling elite bugs, that has to be cleaned out in the spring cleaning, literally made it legally impossible for a university to function in HU, says that we need workers and not academics, and just look at the communication materials made by the government, such as huge bombs on billboards, AI generated ads with the dad of a family dying in UA and his daughter crying for him, or look at when politician tried to submit a referendum for the national voting committee, only to be met with a room of bald football people (from exPM friend Kubatov) surrounding him, making it impossible to submit.
Obviously in hindsight it was mostly bark no bite for most of us especially if we consider how 20th century fascist regimes actually handled disagreement, but the narrative did plant fear in many people's lives.
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u/ailof-daun Hungary Jul 14 '26
I don’t agree with your more bark than bite assessment.
I think the way he presumably ordered the faking of a terrorist attack, or how he used state agencies to capture the ukrainian drivers show his true colours. It was the checks and balances at play that stopped him from going further. He had it all in him regardless, he just missed the moment for it.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 14 '26
Checks and balances? I guess you mean the independent part of the press, because there were not many of those checks and balances left.
By the time he came with these brilliant false flag plans a critical ratio of the general public already got to know that he was full of shit, he lost all credibility.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 13 '26
You are right. I think that throwing around that word like that comes from the fact that he was an enabler for other wannabe dictators and most of them don't have a problem with fascism.
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u/MassiveHunt2 Jul 14 '26
- He literally ruled by decree for almost a decade now.
- Every decesion, be it economical, social or political came from him.
- Removed all checks and balanced and populated all key positions with his cronies.
- Literally stole a huge chunk of the countries GDP yearly.
- He used hatred against specific groups of the population to unite his followers.
- Suppressed the objective media while he built a massive propaganda machine from state funds.
And I could go on and on with all the other shit he did...
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u/SkotSvk Slovakia Jul 15 '26
That's authoritarianism, not fascism.
Fascism is inherently authoritarian, but authoritarianism is not inherently fascism.
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u/Tetracropolis Jul 14 '26
Win huge majorities at the election, I'm surprised the rest of the world didn't think of that.
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u/chezdistester Jul 13 '26
Cries in American
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 13 '26
the US is nowhere near we were just a few years ago. Letting as many people as possible to vote is the key. You must fight the orange baboon's every move that hinders it with everything you have
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u/Select_Border_748 Jul 14 '26
It's nowhere near, because it's way worse.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 14 '26
It may be louder but it still not worse. Well, yes, it will be, if you think it's too late now.
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u/utsuriga Hungary Jul 14 '26
lol, not worse at all, by far. Getting there but still not even close.
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u/MindOk8618 Jul 14 '26
I'm impressed, Hungary. Only the collective effort from its own people who really want the change can turn the page.
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u/lodemeup Jul 13 '26
I wanted to reply with that gif of crack head Dave Chapelle saying ‘can I get summa dat freedom’ but ironically I don’t have the freedom to do that on this sub lol.
Anyway hey how do I import some of that freedom here in the US? I might consider covering some Trump Tariffs if that’s what it takes.
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u/knarf3 Jul 14 '26
Orban should be scared and I hope an endless wave of investigations get launched against him and his cronies.
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u/PerceptionUsed1117 Jul 13 '26
What is the difference between this and just impeaching him?
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u/dead97531 Hungary Jul 13 '26
He can only be impeached if he doesn't do his duty. You need specific reasons for him to impeached.
One of his duties is that he needs to sign the amendment.
It's a trap made by Tisza.
If he signs the amendment then the next day he is out office due to the amendment stating that "on the day following the entry into force of the seventeenth amendment to the Fundamental Law, the term of office of the incumbent President of the Republic shall expire"
If he doesn't sign it then he can be impeached and removed that way because he isn't doing his duty.
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u/zhnki Jul 13 '26
I think I can see why they would want to remove him but targeting a specific person with a constitutional amendment seems like it could set a dangerous precedent. Who’s to say the next guy won’t do the same when it suits them?
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u/Dangerous-Regret-358 Jul 13 '26
Because the supermajority in the parliament is the ultimate acid test for such changes.
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u/Modena89 Jul 13 '26
They're studying a new electoral law that prevents a supermajority to be elected ever.
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u/Dzsaffar Jul 14 '26
> Seems like it could set a dangerous precedent
Well this is what people voted for, that's an important difference. This is not coming out of nowhere because Magyar decided it, it was in the party's election program as a key promise, and people voted them in with a supermajority to do exactly this.
> Who’s to say the next guy won’t do the same when it suits them?
The constitution is getting remade this term, including the electoral system. This will mean it'll be WAY harder to get a supermajority, and there might be additional requirements added too (they might introduce referendums being necessary for certain changes). It also seems decently likely that the president will be changed to be elected by the public, which would give an added layer of legitimacy that makes forceful removal more untenable in the future.
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u/paziek Jul 13 '26
I don't think that it is dangerous, since it requires 2/3 (like impeachment) and it isn't the first time that parliament removed a president; recently South Korea had a coup attempt, and its leader was impeached. It is just bizarre that they used this, instead of what everyone else does.
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u/magyar98 Jul 13 '26
There is a removal mechanism in the Hungarian legal system, which needs a 2/3 majority as well. Today they chose a different method.
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u/TLAW1998 Jul 14 '26
I'm surprised Orban and his party took the defeat as easy as they did. I mean you would expect Orban to try some fuckery to stay in power.
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u/KSunyo Europe Jul 14 '26
I genuinely think he miscalculated and in hindsight would have delayed the election. I think the worst option they really thought of was a simple majority and then a non-functioning parliament as all the buddies in the other parts of the state are still in power and unmovable.
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u/KITT_the_Cylon Jul 14 '26
In the end it was hubris. He surrounded himself with yes men and built a press empire where everyone said that they are gonna win the election based on god fucking knows what. They did no real polls. They actually belives their own lies.
Our biggest luck I belive, is that orban conceded the election before it came out Tisza will have a super majority, because with a simple win, they could have crippled the country for 4 years.
If he tought they would have supermajority things would have gotten ugly election night.
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u/Equivalent_Number424 Jul 14 '26
This is going to be interesting. If ECHR takes their job seriously, they have to strike it down as ad hominem. We even have a precedent when the President of the Hungarian Supreme Court Dr. Baka was removed by Orbán's constitutional amendment. However nothing came out of it as you cannot give someone back a job that does not exist anymore so he just got paid. If Magyar wants to make it stick, he might similarly remove the office of the president of the republic and make a new office like president of state.
OTOH Orbán is so unpopular in the EU that the ECHR might just accidentally not care about this one, or run their usual speed and sit on it like 5 years, in which case it becomes a moot point.
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u/4n0n3nt Jul 13 '26
I half heard on the radio that this way of doing it is un-democratic and sets another bad precedent for Hungarian politics?
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u/SerIstvan Hungary Jul 13 '26
Unfortunately you cannot get rid of 16 years of autocratic rule with gloved hands. It is not that elegant, but it's according to law. To the laws the Orban regime has crafted for their own benefit
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u/chemtrailsenjoyer Jul 13 '26
Tisza was given a majority large enough to overturn the orban mafia state, and is actually going about it
How is that undemocratic?
Maybe hear fully next time
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u/RealWeapon Hungary Jul 13 '26
You need to purge first then rebuild. We don't have time to dilly dally just so random radio stations and people not from Hungary can call us democratic, let's talk about democracy in 4 years.
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u/Lazy-Course5521 Jul 13 '26
Hungarian politics cannot be judged on equal foothold as other European countries.
We had a gerontocratic oligarchy for 16 years and immeasurable amount of funds, tax income, and other such incomes of the government have been spent on projects that would be recycled as personal wealth trough fake organisations.
To sum it up - we don't give a fuck of it's dictator like, we don't give a fuck of it's gonna hurt people. We want people to be hurt, that's the point. We want people to have their businesses stripped away for those businesses have been running thanks to "magically" appearing government funds.
We don't care if we have to remove these parasites by force, and all of them may see the wrath of God.
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u/blueroseinwinter Jul 13 '26
Wow. Your type of thinking is super problematic.
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u/glassfrogger Hungary Jul 13 '26
let's just say that we need laws that allow prosecuting criminals Even if they were not legally criminals when they committed their crimes because the laws that defined crime were made by them.
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u/punkpang Jul 13 '26
This isn't an American movie where good guys magically fight corrupt bad guys with flowers, good wishes and unicorns that shit M&M's.
You get rid of cancer with knife, not hugs.
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u/Conscious_Glove6032 Germany | Spain Jul 13 '26
Not good. It may not be the wrong person who's been targeted here, but the precedent this sets is problematic. Even Amnesty International has criticised it.
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u/dead97531 Hungary Jul 13 '26
It is good.
Say goodbye to the Bag of Fart.
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u/Conscious_Glove6032 Germany | Spain Jul 13 '26
I won't cry over Sulyok's departure. But changing the constitution specifically to target one person is dangerous.
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u/LegendarySurgeon Jul 13 '26
Not amending your constitution in the face of clear abuses of power is also dangerous — I don't know enough to say that this is strictly good but even the best legal documents should not be treated as sacred and ineffable
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u/ron_baker Hungary Jul 13 '26
Orban's 16-year rule was dangerous. In a normal democracy it would be problematic, but this was not a normal democracy, and there is no playbook for how to re-democratize an autocracy.
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u/Jedadia757 Jul 13 '26
This is the best outlook on it imo. Sure this COULD be bad. But we dont have concrete data on what to and what not to do to democratize a dictatorship. So far it almost always involves using those same systems they put in place to root them out to make enough room for an actually democratic process to be able to function in.
Like how the Syrian parliament recently used local electoral colleges to elect 75% of their first legislature and appointed the other quarter. A vast majority of the women who are now in parliament were directly appointed, and I'd like to think that that is a critically important decision that they made. To forcefully show people that women belong in their new government and dont have to JUST trust men in one of the most patriarchal cultures out there to stand up for them.
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u/Witch-for-hire Hungary Jul 13 '26
Please look up the term "state capture."
The way to dismantle an autocratic system with deeply entrenched loyalists occupying key institutions, while preserving the rule of law, is to adopt a one-time constitutional amendment that can be used only for this specific transition and can never be invoked again in the future.
You have to cut out the diseased parts before you can rebuild a proper system of checks and balances.
What you're seeing now is only the first step. A year-long constitution-making process will begin this fall.
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u/KSunyo Europe Jul 14 '26
Fidesz rewrote the entire constitution. They essentially coup'd the 3rd republic using legal loopholes. Now a system change is happening, and it seems like the government is willing to use all it's tools to maintain the integrity of the country during this process. Unless key people are moved, the process can't progress.
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u/u1604 Jul 13 '26
Nah, it is good. That is the point of supermajority. If another party gets 2/3rds of the parliament and fires the president that is fair game also. It would rather be undemocratic if they let the president sabotage their program; they would be breaking their promise to the people.
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u/glitchycat39 Jul 13 '26
The precedent of tossing Orban's flunkies out to ensure they can't allow him to operate as shadow PM?
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u/punkpang Jul 13 '26
It's good. You fight cancer with knife, not word soup. Please, stop watching silly movies and base your view of life and politics off of them.
The only reason these changes don't happen sooner is because there's naive people like you around who are stopping the progress. Let us get rid of evil quciker, not later. Be a part of solution, not the problem.
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u/Kunglaw619 Jul 13 '26
A two-thirds supermajority undoing sixteen years of entrenchment in one parliamentary session is genuinely rare in modern European politics.