The National Assembly of Hungary is set to vote on Tuesday, 11 August, to appoint a new head of state. The candidate for the presidency is András Baka, who previously served as the President of the Supreme Court. The candidate was nominated by the parliamentary group of Prime Minister Peter Magyar‘s Tisza party on Saturday, 8 August. In accordance with the constitution, the parliament is required to elect a new president within 30 days following the expiration of the previous President, Tamas Sulyok‘s term on 20 July.
On Saturday, a Tisza club meeting, via secret ballot, decided to nominate the 73-year-old lawyer and former President of the Supreme Court as the party’s presidential candidate for Tisza, as announced on the party’s Facebook page. Baka became President of the Supreme Court in 2009, with a term expected to last six years. However, constitutional amendments passed by Viktor Orbán‘s government led to his removal from office in January 2012.
Concurrently, a new institution, the Curia, was established, officially replacing the Supreme Court. The new regulations introduced a requirement that judges of the Curia must have at least five years of judicial experience in Hungary. As a result, Baka was automatically excluded, having served most of his career as a judge on the European Court of Human Rights.
The President of Hungary is elected through a secret ballot, requiring the support of at least two-thirds of the members of parliament. Following the announcement of election results, the newly elected President may assume office eight days later. For a candidate’s name to appear on the ballot, they must receive the endorsement of at least one-fifth of the members of parliament, which is at least 40 MPs. Currently, the Tisza party holds 141 of the 199 seats in parliament.
In addition to Tisza, the Fidesz party of the former Prime Minister Orbán is the only party that can nominate a candidate independently. However, Fidesz has previously indicated its intention to boycott the vote, citing the dismissal of President Tamas Sulyok, who was elected with Fidesz’s support in 2024, as unlawful.
