Hungarian parliament set to elect Orbán critic András Baka as president

A judge removed by Orbán returns

András Baka, a 73-year-old jurist born in 1952, will be elected Hungary's new head of state on Tuesday at 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT), when the National Assembly votes on his nomination. Baka served as president of the Hungarian Supreme Court until Orbán's government removed him in 2011 or 2012, depending on the source, after he denounced a judicial reform as a disguised purge. The reform lowered the retirement age for judges, effectively forcing many from the bench. Baka challenged his dismissal at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), where he had himself served as a judge from 1991 to 2008. Four years after his removal, the ECHR ruled that his dismissal was political in nature.

The vote is a formality: Baka is the sole candidate, and the governing Tisza party holds 141 of 199 parliamentary seats, a two-thirds majority. Prime Minister Péter Magyar's party nominated Baka on Saturday, August 8, after a secret ballot among three finalists. The other two candidates were historian Ignác Romsics and independent lawyer Botond Fülöp.

Why the presidency was vacant

The election follows the removal of former president Tamás Sulyok, whose mandate ended on July 19, 2026, after the Tisza majority passed a constitutional amendment allowing his dismissal. Magyar had called Sulyok a "marionette of Orbán" and made his removal a priority even before winning the April 2026 elections. Hungarian law requires parliament to elect a new president within one month of the vacancy. The constitutional amendment also provides that the new president will serve until a new constitution takes effect, or for a maximum of five years.

Fidesz, Orbán's party, has announced it will boycott Tuesday's vote, calling it "illegitimate" following the curtailment of Sulyok's mandate. NGOs including Human Rights Watch have criticised Sulyok's removal, arguing it employed methods reminiscent of those Orbán used to reshape Hungarian institutions.

Magyar's search for a consensus figure

Magyar initially floated chess champion Judit Polgár for the presidency, but she declined. The Tisza party then examined about ten candidates and conducted an online survey on social networks before narrowing the field to three. Baka, though less prominent in the media than Fülöp, was ultimately selected. Fülöp had played a role in 2024 in triggering the resignation of former president Katalin Novák through anonymously distributed investigations. That pardon affair, involving clemency granted to an accomplice in a paedophilia case, also led to Magyar's break with Fidesz and the founding of the Tisza party.

Baka was elected to parliament in 1990 on the conservative MDF party list. Analyst Bulcsú Zsiga of the Centre for Fair Political Analysis described Baka as someone who went to the end to demonstrate that what happened to him was contrary to European law.

He went all the way to demonstrate that what happened to him was contrary to European law.

Zsiga said Baka's return through the front door sends a signal to Hungary's European partners and offers a guarantee that the restoration of liberal democracy will follow a clearly defined trajectory.

The Tisza party said in a statement that Baka had consistently stood for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.

He always attached paramount importance to the principle of separation of powers and consistently stood for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.

The party described him as the strongest guarantee that the presidential office regains its dignity and its ability to unite the people, and said he will serve as a counterweight to the governing majority.