Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is withdrawing from the Hungarian parliament. He announced this in a statement on Saturday video message on Facebook. After sixteen years in power, Orbán’s Fidesz party suffered a major defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary elections two weeks ago. Fidesz lost sharply to the new centre-right party Tisza, led by Péter Magyar.
Those elections saw a record turnout: almost 78 percent of Hungarians went to the polls. Tisza won a two-thirds majority in parliament, which allows the party to reverse reforms by the right-wing conservative Orbán. Fidesz won 52 of the 199 seats.
Orbán previously called the loss “painful” and a “shock.” He also said that his opponent was simply stronger. The inauguration of the new parliament is on May 9, until then Orbán is formally still the Hungarian prime minister.
‘Complete renewal’
The 62-year-old Orbán has served in the Hungarian parliament continuously since 1990. Last week he called for a “complete renewal” of his party. Now Orbán says he wants to focus entirely on reforms of his political camp.
“At the moment I am not needed in parliament, but I am needed for the reorganization of the nationalist party,” Orbán says in the video message. He also says he will remain as chairman of Fidesz if he is reappointed during the party congress in June.
The new Prime Minister Magyar thinks it is a cowardly decision, he writes Facebook: “The ‘courageous’ street fighter is still incapable of one thing: taking responsibility.” He also writes that there is a lack of democratic opposition in the Hungarian parliament with Orbán as the “mafia boss” of the Fidesz party.
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