Hungary’s Prime Minister Magyar Urges President To Quit In Fiery Inaugural Speech (Worthy News In-Depth)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar urged the nation’s president to resign immediately in an unprecedented inaugural speech in parliament Saturday, while an estimated 200,000 supporters watched proceedings outside on giant screens in central Budapest.

The 45-year-old Magyar, who asked God to help him in his task, declared the end of an era under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose critics increasingly viewed his 16-year rule as authoritarian.

Addressing President Tamás Sulyok, a longtime Orbán ally, Magyar accused him of remaining silent while democratic institutions were weakened.

“Half the country was called insects to be exterminated,” Magyar said, arguing that the president failed to distance himself from Orbán’s inflammatory rhetoric. “Mr. President, you failed to raise your voice when judges, artists, and civic groups were threatened, silenced, or pressured.”

Magyar also accused the president of failing to speak out when, according to him, Hungary’s intelligence services were used against the country’s largest opposition movement and when “billions in public money” were spent spreading “war hatred” among Hungarians.

PRESIDENT UNDER FIRE

“How could someone, after so much cowardice, looking away, and lies, embody the unity of this beautiful nation?” Magyar asked lawmakers. “Mr. President, it is time to lay down your mandate.”

Sulyok appeared to respond from the parliamentary chamber: “There is still a homeland, Prime Minister! There is still a homeland!”

Magyar’s remarks came after he was sworn in following his Tisza Party’s historic April 12 election victory, in which it secured a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s 199-seat National Assembly.

In a sweeping speech, Magyar portrayed Hungary as a nation damaged by corruption, social decline, and years of political division.

He said tens of thousands die prematurely each year because the healthcare system had been “bled dry,” while some 900,000 Hungarians lack a family doctor and patients often wait months or years for medical treatment.

HEALTHCARE AND CORRUPTION

Magyar also criticized the education system, saying it increasingly reinforced inequality instead of offering opportunity.

Economically, Magyar said about half of Hungary’s adults survive on less than 300,000 forints ($830) a month, while inflation and soaring housing prices have made life increasingly difficult for young families.

The new prime minister sharply attacked alleged corruption under previous governments, claiming Hungary had become the European Union’s “most corrupt” member state.

He alleged that some 20 trillion forints ($55 billion) in public wealth disappeared over the past 15 years and that another 8 trillion forints ($22 billion) in European Union funding became inaccessible because of corruption and the weakening of rule-of-law protections.

“That money could have funded hospitals, schools, roads, and businesses,” Magyar told parliament.

REFORM PLANS

Magyar said his government would prioritize restoring ties with the European Union, strengthening rule-of-law protections, fighting corruption, and rebuilding healthcare and education systems. However, members of the far-right, euroskeptic Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement) briefly walked out of the chamber in protest over the playing of the European Union anthem during the ceremony, which Magyar suggested was meant as a way to rebuild bridges with Brussels.

Magyar also pledged to swiftly establish a proposed National Asset Recovery and Protection Office to trace and recover allegedly misused public assets accumulated during the previous era.

The new government was expected to include technocrats and reform-minded ministers. Magyar recently nominated legal scholar Márta Görög as justice minister after an earlier nominee stepped aside following controversy surrounding family ties to the prime minister.

Supporters said the cabinet appointments signaled an effort to build a more professional and transparent administration focused on rebuilding investor confidence and unlocking frozen European Union funds.

Despite his sharp criticism of the previous leadership, Magyar repeatedly stressed reconciliation and national renewal.

CALL FOR UNITY

“There can be no new beginning without reconciliation,” he said. “There can be no reconciliation without justice. And there can be no justice without confronting the past.”

He described the April election — in which more than 3.3 million Hungarians voted for change — as unprecedented in the history of Hungary’s post-communist Third Republic.

Magyar also called it a special moment because democracy was returning to Hungary nearly four decades after the reburial of former Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who was executed for supporting the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination.

That uprising was crushed by Soviet troops, leaving thousands dead and forcing many Hungarians to flee abroad. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the bloody revolt, which remains a painful wound in Hungarian society.

Magyar concluded by pledging not to “rule” Hungary, but to “serve” it.

SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE

“Power is temporary, but the consequences of our decisions remain for generations,” he said. “I will not rule Hungary. I will serve my homeland.”

Another moving moment came when children wearing black bow ties and carrying guitars entered parliament to perform the anthem of Hungary’s Roma community — often still referred to as Gypsies — a group that has long faced discrimination and neglect, leaving at least some legislators struggling to hold back tears.

The atmosphere outside parliament resembled a national celebration, with crowds waving Hungarian and Tisza Party flags under sunny skies while chanting for change.

Hungary’s newly appointed Health Minister, Zsolt Hegedűs, 56, also joined the celebrations. At the podium where the new cabinet was introduced, he showed off dance moves that have become a hit on social media since he first stepped into the spotlight following Tisza’s April 12 election victory. Festivities continued late into the night, with the neo-Gothic parliament building illuminated by a laser show projecting the red, white, and green colors of the Hungarian flag, along with other symbols representing the rapid changes embraced by the dancing crowds of mainly young voters.

Among those celebrating was 61-year-old Loretta Cook, a dual U.S.-Hungarian citizen whose parents fled Hungary during the crushed 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet rule.

NEW GENERATION

“My parents left corruption behind in 1956,” Cook told Worthy News. “If I went back to the United States now, it would feel like returning to what they escaped from.”

Cook, who moved from the Boston area to Hungary four years ago after retiring from a nursing career, said this was the first Hungarian election in which she voted.

“I voted for Magyar because this country needed change,” she said. “A non-corrupt, open, and transparent change.”

Another supporter, 27-year-old economist Omar Hanya, described the moment as “a great social consensus for change.”

“The old opposition had lost people’s trust,” he said. “Magyar and Tisza brought fresh faces, fresh ideas, and confidence that Hungary can again be fully part of Europe and the rule of law.”

Yet analysts said Magyar faces enormous challenges, including repairing relations with European allies, stabilizing the economy, tackling corruption allegations, rebuilding weakened state institutions, and uniting a deeply polarized nation after years of bitter political division.

However, Magyar suggested his faith would help guide him. He referred to Saint Stephen I of Hungary, who established Hungary as a Christian kingdom more than 1,000 years ago. Magyar said he hoped to restore those same values in what he described as a free, sovereign, and democratic Hungary.

Many in the crowd described Saturday as marking “the end of the Orbán regime,” though Magyar himself urged Hungarians to seek renewal through reconciliation rather than revenge.

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