Hungary’s president signs a constitutional amendment ending his term

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s president signed a constitutional amendment into law on Saturday that ends his term in office, bringing to a close a dispute between him and the country’s new government that was seeking to oust him as part of a purge of officials appointed during the reign of Viktor Orbán.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who defeated the long-serving Orbán in a blowout election in April, had repeatedly called on the Orbán-appointed president, Tamás Sulyok, to resign, arguing he had failed to live up to his role as president by neglecting to stand in the way of antidemocratic steps by Orbán’s government.

When Sulyok refused, lawmakers with Magyar’s pro-European, center-right Tisza party passed a constitutional amendment this week that called for an immediate end to his term. Sulyok had five days to sign the amendment into law, which he did on the final day before the deadline.

In a video posted to Facebook Saturday evening, Sulyok — whom Magyar had frequently referred to as Orbán’s “puppet” — said that being made to sign the amendment was “lasting proof that the fundamental values of a free society, the rule of law, democracy, the principle of power-sharing, have been trampled on in the interest of power.”

Sulyok’s term will officially end at midnight on Monday, when speaker of Parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, will automatically assume his duties until lawmakers elect a new president, a task which has a 30-day deadline.

Since taking office in May, Magyar’s administration has quickly gone to work dismantling what he calls Orbán’s “mafia” by removing numerous political appointees and heads of institutions viewed as having facilitated Orbán’s autocratic government.

The new government suspended the news service of Hungary’s public television and radio — which Magyar has argued served as a “propaganda factory” for Orbán’s party — and shuttered Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Office, an authority seen by Orbán’s opponents as a tool for intimidating critics and silencing independent media.

The amendment which removed Sulyok also made some judicial reforms, set up an office aimed at investigating financial abuses under the Orbán government, and imposed a 12-year term limit on lawmakers.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Orbán responded to Sulyok’s signing of the amendment by writing that “tyranny is no longer a threat, but a reality.”

“If this could be done to the president of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe,” Orbán wrote.

But in a video statement on Facebook on Saturday, Magyar said that by passing the amendment, “we have fulfilled several of our important commitments and returned what the Orbán regime tried to take away from the Hungarian people for many years.”

He added he would convene his party on Monday to discuss its nomination for a next president.