Péter Magyar, 45, has been elected the new Prime Minister of Hungary. He won the position on Saturday during the inaugural session of the National Assembly in Budapest.
Magyar’s party, Tisza, secured an absolute majority-approximately 53 percent of the votes-in the parliamentary election held on April 12th. Due to Hungarian electoral law, the party also possesses a two-thirds majority in parliament.
While Tisza is generally categorized as a center-right party, it is notably more pro-European than the Fidesz party under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán broke a tradition of the parliament that had lasted 36 years by foregoing a farewell speech on Saturday, and he also did not participate in his successor’s election.
In contrast, Magyar frequently referenced his predecessor in his first speech as Prime Minister before the parliament. He stated that he had observed how the office of the Prime Minister could be placed in the service of power rather than the nation. “I watched how power can slowly captivate a person, how a politician gradually becomes a prisoner of his own system, and how a political community can lose contact with those people” Magyar noted. He concluded by stating that, as a result, Hungary had become the most corrupt member state of the European Union.