BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s ruling party will nominate Tamas Sulyok, president of the Constitutional Court, as next president to succeed Katalin Novak who resigned earlier this month, a government spokesperson posted on social media platform X on Thursday.
Novak, a long-time ally of conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, resigned on Feb. 10 after coming under mounting pressure for pardoning a man convicted of helping to cover up sexual abuse in a children’s home. The scandal triggered a huge street protest last week.
“Today, after careful deliberation at the parliamentary group meeting, Mate Kocsis… announced the nomination of Dr. Tamas Sulyok, President of the Constitutional Court as the government’s presidential candidate,” the spokesperson said.
Parliament’s Speaker will decide when the legislature, where Fidesz has a huge majority, can elect Sulyok to fill the largely ceremonial role. The vote is expected to take place in March.
Opposition parties have not yet nominated their candidates.
Sulyok has been the President of Hungary’s top court since 2016, a mandate he also received with the backing of ruling party Fidesz’s lawmakers.
Fidesz stalwart Novak’s resignation was a rare setback for Orban, who has been in power since 2010, and who faces European parliament elections just as the country emerges from an inflation crisis.
Orban has for years campaigned saying he wants to protect children from what he has described as LGBTQ activists roaming the nation’s schools. This has been one of several issues over which he has clashed with the European Commission.
(Reporting by Boldizsar Gyori and Krisztina Than)
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