Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has declined his parliamentary seat following a landslide defeat to Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, vowing instead to focus on reorganizing his “patriotic movement” from outside the legislature.
Following a historic defeat in the April 12 elections that ended his 16-year tenure, Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on Saturday that he will not take up his seat in the new parliament, choosing instead to focus on the “reorganisation of the patriotic movement.” Despite being re-elected as an MP on the proportional representation list, the 62-year-old leader stated in a social media video that “the mandate I obtained… is, in fact, a parliamentary mandate of Fidesz,” and that he decided to return it because “I am now needed not in parliament, but in the reorganisation of the national camp.”
The election saw a tectonic shift in Hungarian politics as the Tisza party, led by former insider Péter Magyar, secured a two-thirds majority in the 199-seat chamber, leaving Orbán’s Fidesz with just 52 seats amid widespread public frustration over corruption and declining living standards. As the incoming government prepares to dismantle the patronage system known as NER and restore ties with the EU and Ukraine, Orbán has appointed Gergely Gulyás to lead the party’s parliamentary bloc while he prepares for a Fidesz party conference in June to determine his future as leader. The new parliament is scheduled to convene on May 9, marking the official start of Magyar’s promised era of judicial independence and anti-corruption reform.