The Amazing President We Never Had

Péter Magyar’s government is progressing with Hungary’s constitutional restoration at remarkable speed. The 17th amendment to the Constitution officially ended the term of the previous president, Tamás Sulyok. At the same time, the amendment introduced term limits for members of parliament, effectively bringing the political careers of many emblematic figures of the Orbán era to an end at the conclusion of the current parliamentary term. As Ábel Bede put it in his previous article, April 12th was a revolution and Tisza’s leaders are acting like it too.

The changes have not been without controversy. The method of removing Sulyok was far from sophisticated legal manoeuvring - the amendment simply declared that he was no longer president. Meanwhile, the decision to apply parliamentary term limits retroactively has raised eyebrows even among legal scholars who are by no means supporters of the Orbán regime - clearly due to its long record of abusing the law whenever politically expedient.

With Sulyok’s removal, the question of who should become Hungary’s next president immediately came to the fore. Péter Magyar himself had previously been seen as supportive of introducing direct elections for the largely ceremonial office. Advocates of direct presidential elections often argue that such a reform would make sense only if the president’s powers were significantly expanded, thereby strengthening the system of checks and balances that has been severely weakened over the past sixteen years.

Magyar also promised that, even if the current system - under which parliament elects the president - were retained, the choice would be guided by broad public consultation. It therefore came as a surprise to many when he unilaterally announced that he would ask the legendary Hungarian chess player Judit Polgár to serve as Hungary’s next president, at least for the interim period until a new constitution is drafted and approved in an official referendum, and possibly beyond.

Outcry

Magyar’s decision to proceed with the selection of the president without the promised public consultation became the first major issue to divide Tisza’s own electorate. The speed of the process was also remarkable. Sulyok signed the constitutional amendment removing him from office on Friday, 17 July, and Magyar publicly announced his support for Polgár just two days later, on 19 July, in a Facebook post. The weekend in between was anything but quiet.

Tisza supporters’ calls for broader consultation were understandable. However, much of the criticism directed at Polgár herself was needlessly mean-spirited. Magyar was clearly seeking a president untainted by Hungary’s deeply polarised political conflicts, and in that respect Judit Polgár seemed an ideal choice. She had never publicly aligned herself with any political camp, while her achievements as a chess player command admiration across Hungarian society. A child prodigy, she became the highest-rated female chess player in history, holding the world number one ranking among women for a record 26 consecutive years. Throughout her career, she defeated some of the greatest players the game has ever known, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and, later in her career, Magnus Carlsen. She is, by any reasonable standard, a living legend and someone in whom Hungary can take genuine pride.

That is precisely why many of the reactions to her possible nomination were so disappointing. In my view, they reveal something important—and troubling—about the state of Hungarian society today.

Old Tropes

Mainstream criticism from Fidesz of Polgár herself remained relatively muted. Even Viktor Orbán referred to her as a national hero. Instead, the party focused primarily on the legitimacy of the appointment process, arguing that anyone chosen by Magyar would be tainted by the controversial and legally blunt removal of Tamás Sulyok.

Far less restrained was the reaction of Vadhajtások, a news portal that Orbán has previously described as one of his favourites. The outlet argued that Hungary’s president should be “Christian,” a remark that not-so-subtly alluded to Polgár’s Jewish background. The leader of the far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party, László Toroczkai, went even further, drawing attention during a parliamentary session to Polgár’s alleged - and later confirmed - dual Hungarian-Israeli citizenship.

His comments inevitably recalled those of former Jobbik MP Márton Gyöngyösi, who in 2012 infamously suggested that Hungarian-Israeli dual citizens holding public office should be listed on national security grounds. Such rhetoric resonates particularly painfully in a country whose history includes the Holocaust, during which approximately 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered.

On social media, Polgár’s Jewish heritage received even greater attention. Long-discredited quotations attributed to former Israeli president Shimon Peres about an alleged Jewish “takeover” of Hungary resurfaced once again, reviving one of the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theories in Hungarian public life. Someone even edited Polgár’s Wikipedia page to emphasise her dual citizenship. At the same time, celebratory coverage in Hungarian and international Jewish media was eagerly cited by some commentators as supposed evidence supporting these narratives.

Such rhetoric is unfortunately not new in Hungary. In recent years, however, overt antisemitic discourse has been somewhat constrained by Orbán’s consistently pro-Israel foreign policy, his close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government’s support for parts of Hungary’s Jewish community.

Yet antisemitic remarks were by no means the dominant criticism of Polgár’s possible nomination. A more common objection was that she was supposedly “unqualified,” with critics frequently pointing out that she does not hold a law degree. This argument is difficult to sustain. The Hungarian Constitution imposes no legal qualification for the presidency, and the office is supported by an extensive professional legal staff.

More broadly, such criticism reflects an unnecessarily narrow conception of what qualities a head of state should possess. Since the democratic transition, Hungarian public life has been overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers - hardly to the country’s constitutional benefit. The country’s “lawyerocracy” did not prevent the emergence of Orbán’s System of National Cooperation; if anything, many legal professionals facilitated the gradual erosion of checks and balances through increasingly sophisticated legal mechanisms. The notion that appointing another lawyer as president would somehow constitute a meaningful constitutional safeguard is, at this point, difficult to take seriously.

Setback

Polgár’s nomination ultimately became the new government’s first major setback. The chess legend declined the nomination, explaining that she did not feel she had the strength to take on the historic task of helping reunite the Hungarian nation. Magyar later admitted that he had made a mistake - at least in the way the nomination had been communicated - and publicly apologised. Although this short episode is unlikely to inflict lasting political damage on Tisza, it clearly demonstrated that the new prime minister is not invincible, despite the historic mandate voters granted him on the 12th of April. Magyar now faces the challenge of selecting a new presidential candidate, although finding a broadly respected figure with no ties to Hungary’s previous discredited left-liberal establishment will be anything but easy.

Missed Opportunity

Judit Polgár would have been an excellent candidate for the presidency, despite widespread criticism of her lack of a law degree. The president’s primary task is to represent national unity and consensus; the office’s legal functions have become largely secondary. Polgár’s popularity, international reputation and extraordinary career made her an ideal candidate for the role. Professional chess demands discipline, stamina and strategic thinking. Beyond that, her upbringing placed exceptional emphasis on education and talent development - values that should be at the heart of any president’s vision for the country. Despite her demanding childhood and extraordinary career, she has remained a remarkably likeable and humble public figure. She would undoubtedly have brought something fresh and genuinely new to Hungarian politics.

Presidents under Fidesz ultimately lacked the independence and principles the office requires. Instead of acting as guardians of the Constitution and symbols of national unity, they increasingly became servants of Orbán’s growing arbitrariness, sacrificing the broad public trust and unifying role the presidency is meant to embody. Based on Polgár’s character and life story, there is little reason to believe she would not have excelled in precisely this most important responsibility.

The government’s nomination fiasco is unlikely to result in lasting political damage for Tisza. Still, the public outcry surrounding Polgár’s nomination revealed something troubling about Hungarian society. It showed how narrow-minded we can become when choosing our public representatives. It also demonstrated that, despite the relatively muted antisemitic rhetoric of recent decades, such attitudes can quickly resurface during periods of political turbulence.

Péter Magyar may have won a historic mandate to restore Hungarian democracy, rebuild the system of checks and balances, and hold accountable those responsible for wrecking and robbing the Third Hungarian Republic under the System of National Cooperation. So far, his government appears to be making considerable progress. The more difficult task, however, is changing the mindset of the Hungarian people - making us more open-minded, more tolerant, and more willing to let go of the old tropes that have poisoned Hungarian public discourse since the early years following the democratic transition of 1990. That challenge now lies before us and, it seems, will remain so for a long time to come.

Egon Zsiros