Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
13-05-2026
BUDAPEST: Hungary’s new Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, has been sworn in, almost a month after he steered his Tisza party to a landslide victory, sweeping away 16 years of rule by Viktor Orban.
“I will not rule over Hungary, I will serve my country,” Magyar said after he took the oath of office in parliament.
Tisza holds 141 seats out of 199 in the new parliament up from zero, a result of the party being founded just two years ago.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in a “celebration of freedom and democracy” outside parliament in Budapest, along the shores of the Danube. Magyar has told Hungarians to step through the “gateway of regime change”.
Orban”s Fidesz party crumbled from 135 to 52 seats, and shows signs of imploding.
He and other key party figures have decided not to take their seats in parliament, and their political future is uncertain, beyond a vague commitment to “rebuild the national side”.
Each day brings new revelations or allegations of corruption against a party which has governed Hungary almost unchallenged since 2010. Magyar has promised a “change of system” as well as a change of government.
“The main priority is to set up the government… on the ruins of the previous one,” Zoltan Tarr, incoming Minister for Social Relations and Culture, told media.
“We are ready to face a very grim economic situation but at the moment, we just don’t know the severity.”
A spending spree initiated by the Orban government in the past eight months came on top of years in which state contracts and funds were channeled to business circles close to Fidesz.
The budget deficit has already swollen close to the planned target for the whole year.
The incoming government is at pains to show that it is morally stronger than Fidesz.
One prominent businessman, Gyorgy Waberer, who switched from Fidesz to Tisza a week before the election, told a journalist he had donated £242,000 (€280,000, $331,000) to Tisza.
Magyar promptly returned the money to him when Magyar”s brother-in-law, Marton Mellethei-Barna, was named justice minister, the new government was bitterly criticized on social media.
On Thursday evening, Mellethei-Barna announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy for the post, “to ensure that not even the slightest shadow is cast on the transition”. Incoming Tisza ministers say there will be no revenge against the outgoing government but those guilty of financial crimes will be held accountable. A new “office to recover stolen assets” will be set up.
“I don’t think that we should talk about a guillotine,” said Tarr, in response to calls for those responsible for siphoning off the national wealth to go on trial.
“We are talking about investigations and actions which are totally in line with the rule of law. Interestingly enough, the current chief prosecutor, and the police, have started certain investigations which they did not start before the election. They are questioning people.”
The small number of prosecutions of prominent figures in Hungary in the past “is turning into a steady flow”, a source close to the prosecutor’s office told media, “not because we didn’t want to prosecute before, but because the police and the tax office were reluctant to gather evidence”.
“What has changed is that people are now coming forward. So a lot more evidence is suddenly available,” the source added.
Last week, Commission sources in Brussels suggested that some of the Hungarian money may be lost. (Int’l News Desk)
