Hungary’s parliament elected Andras Baka, a 73-year-old former Supreme Court chief justice who was once ousted from his position by Viktor Orbán’s government, as the country’s new President on August 11, 2026. The vote, held in a secret ballot, saw 140 lawmakers from the ruling Tisza party vote in favour while six voted against, with Orbán’s Fidesz party boycotting the session entirely. Baka’s appointment is a central part of Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s broader effort to dismantle the political and institutional structures that Orbán built during his 16 years in power.
Who Is Andras Baka?
Andras Baka was born in Budapest on December 11, 1952. He studied law at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, graduating in 1978 with a doctorate in law. He began his career as a legal scholar at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he worked on constitutional law, human rights, and minority rights. He later became a professor of constitutional law at Hungary’s National School of Public Administration and served as its director general.
Baka’s entry into public life came in 1990, when Hungary transitioned from communism to democracy. He was elected as an independent member of the National Assembly from the Hungarian Democratic Forum’s party list, though he never formally joined the party. He served as an MP from 1990 to 1991 before leaving to take up a position on the international stage.
A Career at the European Court of Human Rights
In 1991, Baka was elected as Hungary’s judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France. He served two full terms spanning 17 years, from 1991 to 2008. During this period, he built a strong reputation as an independent-minded jurist with deep expertise in human rights and constitutional law. He also served as a visiting professor at several universities in the United States, France, and Germany.
The ECHR, established in 1959 under the European Convention on Human Rights, is an international court that hears cases alleging violations of civil and political rights by member states of the Council of Europe. Hungary became a member of the Council of Europe in 1990, and Baka served as its representative on the bench for nearly two decades.
Removal from the Supreme Court
In June 2009, Baka was elected by Hungary’s parliament as the President of the Supreme Court for a six-year term set to expire in June 2015. He also served as president of the National Council of Justice, giving him a central role in the administration of Hungary’s judiciary.
His tenure was cut short after Orbán’s Fidesz party won a two-thirds supermajority in the 2010 elections and began sweeping constitutional reforms. Baka publicly criticised several judicial reforms introduced by the Orbán government, particularly a move to reduce the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 62. He called this a “judicial purge” that threatened the independence of the judiciary.
In December 2011, the Fidesz-controlled parliament renamed the Supreme Court as the Kúria and effectively recreated it as a new institution. This allowed parliament to appoint a new head, bypassing Baka’s remaining term. New eligibility requirements were also introduced that required the head of the Kúria to have served as a judge in Hungary for at least five years. Since Baka had spent 17 years at the ECHR in Strasbourg, his experience did not count under the new rules. His mandate formally ended on January 1, 2012, more than three years before it was supposed to expire.
Baka challenged his removal at the ECHR, which ruled in 2014 (in the case of Baka v. Hungary) that the Hungarian authorities had violated his right to freedom of expression and unlawfully removed him from office. The court found that his dismissal was directly linked to his criticism of the Orbán government’s judicial reforms and that it was damaging to democratic freedoms in Hungary. Orbán’s government rejected the findings. After 2011, Baka continued to work at the Kúria as a judge in the civil section until his election as president in 2026.
How Hungary’s Parliament Elected a New President
Hungary operates as a parliamentary republic where the president is the head of state but holds a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected by the National Assembly (Országgyűlés), Hungary’s unicameral parliament, through a secret ballot. Under the Fundamental Law (Hungary’s constitution adopted in 2011), any Hungarian citizen aged at least 35 years may be elected president. A candidate needs a two-thirds supermajority of the 199-member parliament to win in the first round. If no candidate achieves this, a third round is held where a simple majority suffices.
Baka was nominated by the Tisza party on August 8, 2026, after Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s initial preferred candidate, chess legend Judit Polgár, declined the nomination citing concerns about the stress the role would bring. Tisza selected Baka from a shortlist of three candidates that also included historian Ignác Romsics and lawyer Botond Fülöp.
On August 11, the National Assembly voted in a secret ballot. 140 lawmakers voted in favour, six voted against, and there were no abstentions. Members of Orbán’s Fidesz party boycotted the vote entirely. Baka was sworn in immediately after the result was announced and is scheduled to formally assume office on August 19, 2026, one day before Hungary’s national holiday on August 20.
The Tisza party, which won a landslide victory in the April 2026 parliamentary elections with 53.6% of the vote, holds 138 seats in the 199-member parliament, giving it a two-thirds constitutional majority. This supermajority allowed the party to push through constitutional amendments and elect a president without opposition support.
The Ouster of Tamas Sulyok
Baka’s election followed the controversial removal of his predecessor, Tamás Sulyok, who had been appointed as president by Orbán’s Fidesz party in 2024. Sulyok was widely viewed as a loyalist of the former prime minister, and Magyar repeatedly called on him to resign, accusing him of failing to act as a check on Orbán’s government.
When Sulyok refused to step down, Tisza pushed through the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law on July 13, 2026. The amendment, which passed with 139 votes in favour and six against, explicitly terminated Sulyok’s mandate, citing a “serious loss of confidence” in him. Fidesz lawmakers once again boycotted the vote. Sulyok had five days to sign the amendment or refer it to the Constitutional Court, but the court had been stripped of the power to review constitutional amendments by a 2013 Orbán-era change. On July 18, Sulyok signed the amendment, calling it a “breaking point in Hungarian constitutional democracy” and accusing the government of trampling the rule of law. His term ended at midnight on July 20.
The 17th amendment did more than remove Sulyok. It also reinstated a mandatory retirement age of 70 for Constitutional Court judges, which forced out the court’s president, Péter Polt, an Orbán ally. It introduced a 12-year term limit for members of parliament, a provision that applied to more than half of Fidesz’s deputies. It also set up a National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office to investigate financial abuses during the Orbán era.
Until Baka’s election, the Speaker of Parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, served as interim president.
What Powers Does the Hungarian President Hold?
Although the Hungarian presidency is largely ceremonial, the role is not without influence. The president serves as the head of state and expresses the unity of the nation. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the Hungarian Defence Forces.
Key constitutional powers include the ability to send bills back to parliament for reconsideration or refer legislation to the Constitutional Court for review. The president can initiate laws and national referendums, and plays a role in decisions concerning special legal orders such as states of war or emergency. In personnel matters, the president proposes the names of the Prime Minister, the President of the Curia (Supreme Court), the Prosecutor General, and the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights.
However, most executive power in Hungary rests with the Prime Minister, who leads the government and sets policy. The president appoints ministers, the governor of the National Bank of Hungary, and other officials, but typically does so on the recommendation of the prime minister. The president can refuse appointments only if statutory conditions are not met or if there is a well-founded reason that a serious disturbance to democratic functioning would result.
Under the constitutional amendment that made Baka’s presidency possible, his term will last until a new constitution is adopted, but for no more than five years. Magyar has indicated that the new constitution will be drafted through broad public participation to replace the 2011 Basic Law, which was enacted under Orbán’s supermajority.
Baka’s Vision: “We Cannot Build New Hungary on Revenge”
In his first speech to parliament after being elected, Baka struck a tone of reconciliation while acknowledging the gravity of the political moment. “We cannot build the new Hungary on revenge,” he told lawmakers, vowing to “encourage public and professional debate, uphold parliament’s openness and impartiality, and consistently insist that constitution-making must never again become the exclusive project of a single political force.”
Baka described the Orbán era as a period in which “one party captured the state,” branches of power were not separate, and there was no functioning system of checks and balances. He said his role as president would be to serve as a guardian against such a concentration of power ever happening again. He outlined what he sees as Hungary’s current needs: independent courts, free elections, an effective constitutional court, a free public sphere, accountable governance, and a democratic constitutional culture where “criticism is not treason, limits on power are not obstacles, political opponents are not enemies, and compromise is not a sign of weakness.”
Baka has also shown that he will not be a rubber stamp for the Tisza government. Before his nomination, he publicly criticised one of Tisza’s own constitutional amendments that limits MPs’ mandates to 12 years, arguing that it infringes on passive voting rights by restricting voters’ choice of candidates. Analysts see this independent streak as a sign that Magyar has chosen a figure who will serve as a genuine check on executive power, unlike the Orbán-era presidency.
The Bigger Picture: Dismantling the Orbán Era
Baka’s election is the latest step in Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s sweeping campaign to undo the political architecture built by Viktor Orbán during his 16 years in power. Orbán, who served as prime minister from 2010 to 2026 (and previously from 1998 to 2002), used successive election victories and a two-thirds parliamentary majority to reshape Hungary’s institutions. He amended the constitution, packed the courts, consolidated control over media, and installed loyalists in key state positions.
Magyar, a 45-year-old former insider who once moved in Orbán’s circles, burst onto the political scene in early 2024 with a public interview criticising the government. He founded the Tisza party, which won 30% of the vote in the 2024 European Parliament elections and then swept to power in the April 2026 parliamentary elections with a record 79.5% voter turnout. Tisza won 138 of 199 seats, giving Magyar the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution.
Since taking office, Magyar’s government has moved quickly. It has removed Orbán-era political appointees from state institutions, established an asset recovery office, and passed constitutional amendments to restore judicial independence and introduce term limits. The removal of President Sulyok and the appointment of Baka, a judge who was himself a victim of Orbán’s institutional overhauls, carry deep symbolic weight. As Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony noted, “The Orbán system began with the firing of Andras Baka, and now it ends with his election as President of the Republic.”
Magyar has also pledged to unlock billions of euros in frozen European Union funds that were withheld over concerns about democratic backsliding under Orbán. He has promised to restore Hungary’s strained relationships with the EU and NATO, and to support Ukraine, a stance that puts him in direct contrast with Orbán’s pro-Russia leanings.
Key Takeaways
- Andras Baka was elected as the eighth President of Hungary on August 11, 2026, by the National Assembly with 140 votes in favour and six against in a secret ballot.
- Baka served as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for 17 years (1991 to 2008) and as President of Hungary’s Supreme Court from 2009 to 2011, when he was removed by Orbán’s government.
- The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2014 (in Baka v. Hungary) that his removal from the Supreme Court was unlawful and violated his right to freedom of expression.
- Baka replaces Tamás Sulyok, an Orbán appointee whose term was ended early through the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law, signed on July 18, 2026.
- Under the constitutional amendment, Baka’s term will last until a new constitution is adopted, but for no more than five years.
- Hungary’s presidency is largely ceremonial, but the president can send bills back to parliament or refer them to the Constitutional Court for review.
- The Tisza party, led by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, holds 138 of 199 seats in parliament after winning the April 2026 elections with 53.6% of the vote.
