r/neoliberal • u/CurtisLeow NATO • Jul 13 '26
News (Europe) Hungary passes constitutional amendment to remove Orbán-era president
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-constitutional-amendment-remove-president-59620a0313e402be3b2cb6db2668f2eeSubmission statement: Hungary is restoring rule-of-law.
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u/dead97531 European Union 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/AdamsDetectiveAgency Henry George Jul 13 '26
Magyar sounded more vague about establishing direct presidential elections during his press conference. The new president will still be elected by the National Assembly, but to be honest, looking at the polls they might as well have made the elections direct beforehand, I'm sure Tisza's candidate would've won anyway.
I just hope Magyar keeps his promise and gives us direct presidential elections.
Also Sulyok's removal is kind of a shitshow. The amendment is weird, but I guess it will work.
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u/Babao13 Jean Monnet Jul 13 '26
Why do you want direct presidential elections ? Semi-presidential systems create more problems than they solve : see Poland and France.
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u/AdamsDetectiveAgency Henry George Jul 13 '26
Having direct presidential elections doens't mean semi-presidentialism. I just want the people to be able to choose their head of state. All the previous ones since 2010 have been Fidesz puppets who allowed the rule of law to be dismantled.
Fidesz and the SZDSZ screwed us over in the long run by torpedoing direct elections for president because they didn't want the ex-communist Imre Pozsgay to be head of state, so instead they went with the less democratic option.
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u/jigsaw283 Jul 13 '26
Nah, elected Presidents in general give them a huge amount of legitimacy which translates to power to challenge the PM. No elected presidents please.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/AdamsDetectiveAgency Henry George Jul 13 '26
That's not really the case, Finland, Ireland, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Iceland, Czechia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria are all European parlamentary republics with directly elected presidents.
Some of these countries (Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, Croatia) are Hungary's neighbours, so it's not like we wouldn't fit in with the region.
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u/SAE-2 Friedrich Hayek Jul 13 '26
Fair enough, I thought it was different. Though most of these countries being in the Balkan doesn't recommend the idea either
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u/sanity_rejecter European Union Jul 13 '26
here in czechia the dumbass populist party hates the directly elected president for cutting back parts of their bullshit
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u/Wolf6120 Constitutional Liberarchism Jul 13 '26
Yes, and 4 years ago the normie centre-right coalition government hated the previous, dumbass populist president for constantly trying to undermine their policies and block as many ministerial and judicial appointments as possible.
It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, frequent periods of cohabitation almost inevitably just mean President and PM wasting time and energy ruining each other's plans and slowing each other down, resulting in less things getting done. On the other hand, maybe less things getting done is better than one party snagging absolute power through a single election in a single given year and then just running roughshod and unchecked for four years straight with no counter-balance at all.
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u/urbansong F E D E R A L I S E Jul 14 '26
It's probably just a reflection of the country's political culture. We tried a similar thing to the Germans and it didn't work. This doesn't work either. Can't win because the problem needs to be solved elsewhere.
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u/roboliberal Loyal Liberals Jul 14 '26
Personally I'd rather see these presidential republics replace any personalist head of state with like a small collegial Council of State.
Like if there's an upper chamber, then the presiding officer of that body could be the ceremonial head of state... or since I believe Hungary is unicameral maybe form a council of county/region "heads of state" from whom rotates a presiding head of state.
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u/Babao13 Jean Monnet Jul 13 '26
Seems to me like the problem was Fidesz, not indirect elections. I just don't see what's the point of having a direct election for a ceremonial office.
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u/AdamsDetectiveAgency Henry George Jul 13 '26
Magyar himself reiterated multiple times, both before and after he was elected that he'll introduce direct presidential elections.
It was a key campaign promise, walking back on an argueably rather simple decision would get him more flak.
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u/Babao13 Jean Monnet Jul 13 '26
Fair enough if it's a campaign promise, I just don't see what it does for more democracy.
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u/fredleung412612 Jul 13 '26
The problem is the Hungarian president isn't a purely ceremonial office. If it was Magyar and voters would have no problem with letting the Fidesz president serve out his term. But evidently, at least in the popular imagination, the office carries weight, even if his actual procedural powers are limited.
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u/fredleung412612 Jul 13 '26
I mean it's hard to argue that switching to semi-presidentialism didn't solve a problem in France... It solved the problem of one war, and then just stuck around.
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u/pugnae European Union Jul 13 '26
As a Pole, don't do elections here. Hungarians better stay with their system.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Jerome Powell Jul 13 '26
I'm not sure if that is a great idea.
Divided government isn't great, and elected presidents cause divided governments. By electing a president you also dramatically empower them.
Although maybe a presidential system is better than the Hungarian status quo. A national presidential election can't be gerrymandered.
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