An early indirect presidential election was held in Hungary on 11 August 2026 following Tamás Sulyok's removal by constitutional amendment. András Baka, a former president of the Supreme Court of Hungary, was nominated by the governing Tisza Party and was elected with a two-thirds majority. This was the first election in which the winning candidate was not backed by Fidesz since 1995, as well as the first in which Fidesz–KDNP did not nominate a candidate.
Background
Sulyok's removal
Tamás Sulyok's 2024 election came on the heels of his predecessor Katalin Novák's resignation in the wake of her pardon scandal (kegyelmi botrány). The scandal precipitated enormous public outcry against Novák's Fidesz, which had governed Hungary for fourteen years under Viktor Orbán. Although, as a professional jurist, he was nominally a political independent, Sulyok's presidential candidacy received only Fidesz and Christian Democratic People's Party's support in the National Assembly; as such, he was widely perceived as a Fidesz partisan and ally of Orbán's. Thus, in the run-up to the 2026 parliamentary election, which centered around Orbán's long-standing premiership, Péter Magyar pledged that, if his Tisza Party won a two-thirds supermajority in the National Assembly, they would modify the Fundamental Law to remove Sulyok from office. In Hungarian constitutional law, such a supermajority is the threshold for amending the Fundamental Law.
After Tisza won a two-thirds supermajority, Magyar met with Sulyok on 15 April 2026 and urged him to resign voluntarily, calling him "unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation." Magyar also called for other prominent Orbán era officials to step down and set a deadline of 31 May for their resignation. After the deadline passed without Sulyok taking action, Magyar stated he would urge Tisza lawmakers to remove Sulyok legislatively. Magyar subsequently outlined his proposal to amend the Fundamental Law to remove Sulyok from office and to subsequently elect a new president until a new constitution is affirmed by a referendum.
On 13 July, Magyar's proposed reforms were approved by the National Assembly; the amendment ousting Sulyok from the presidency passed by a margin of 139–6. Sulyok had five days to sign the proposal into law or refer it to the Constitutional Court for review. Magyar stated that if Sulyok did not sign the amendment, the National Assembly would initiate impeachment proceedings against him. Sulyok ultimately signed the amendment, removing himself from office on 20 July. Ágnes Forsthoffer, the Speaker of the National Assembly, subsequently became acting President under the Fundamental Law.
Early self-nominations, propositions and declinations
On 16 April, after the general election but while Sulyok was still in office, Gábor Iványi stated that he would accept the presidential office if he received a serious offer to do so. However, on 25 April, in an apparent change of heart, Iványi said that "serving as president is not something [he] needs in [his] life story."
On 22 April, Péter Márki-Zay stated that if there were to be a direct presidential election in the future, he would gladly run and "represent the people." On 9 June, Márki-Zay reaffirmed his former statement in the context of a circulating internal poll assessing the public's view of his potential presidency. András Schiffer, on the other hand, whose name appeared alongside Márki-Zay's in this poll, said the chances of him running were "about the same as [his] becom[ing] Pope."
On 20 April, László Majtényi was asked in an interview whether he wanted to run, as he had in 2017. He dismissed the possibility.
On 24 April, Endre Hann was also asked in an interview whether he would accept the presidency given his recent rise in public appeal. Hann stated that while he considered the prospect unrealistic, he would not turn down such an offer.
On 20 May, Péter Róna stated that, like Majtényi, after his presidential candidacy in 2022, he did not wish to run again.
On 3 June, Gábor Vona proposed five known public figures (József Ángyán, Lajos Kassai, András Lányi, József Pálinkás and Péter Tölgyessy) who, in his view, could ably serve as president. Later, Vona also recommended that a direct presidential election be held on 23 October, the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
On 6 July, Márton Melléthei-Barna announced that Tisza would nominate a candidate "independent of political squabbles." This effectively ruled out the possibility of prominent leading politicians, such as Andrea Rost or Forsthoffer—who had previously been mentioned as possible contenders—running for the office.
Floating of Polgár and controversy
On 18 July, after Sulyok had triggered his own removal, Magyar pledged in a social media post that his Tisza Party would only nominate its presidential candidate after consulting with the public, civil society, and the parliamentary opposition—unlike, he claimed, the previous Fidesz government's modus operandi. On 19 July, sixteen prominent Hungarian scientists, artists, and sportsmen signed an open letter urging Tisza to nominate Judit Polgár for the role. Commentators noted that, a few weeks earlier, Magyar had played a chess match against Polgár at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest at a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States' independence. Magyar said he would meet with Polgár to assess her willingness to be nominated and on 20 July, Tisza's parliamentary faction also expressed its support for her candidacy.
The rapidity of this sequence of events was criticized by public and civil society groups like Amnesty International; commentators noted that Magyar was seemingly undermining the more deliberate consensus-seeking process he had previously promised to follow. On the evening of 20 July, Polgár announced on social media that she would not stand as a candidate, stating she did "not feel strong enough to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation." Magyar reacted by thanking Polgár for her consideration and continued, apparently in response to critics, that he had not in fact envisioned conducting a "societal consultation" on who the next president would be. "That decision ultimately rests with the Tisza Party faction and the National Assembly", he said, adding that "that's called representative democracy." The following day Andrea Bujdosó said that the party would conduct a "societal consultation" and that the consideration of specific individuals for the presidency was therefore on hold.
Further developments
Throughout July 2026, various civic organizations, public intellectuals, and newspapers proposed individuals they viewed as qualified candidates for the presidency. On 19 July, the Lawyer's Circle (Ügyvédkör) proposed Péter Bárándy; on 21 July, Zoltán Fleck, Róbert Puzsér, and Lányi suggested Adrienn Laczó; on the same day, Szemlélek proposed Tamás Fabiny; on 29 July, Magyar Hang published an op-ed similarly in support of Fabiny. Of these proposed nominees, only Laczó ultimately said she would be willing to consider serving as president.
On 21 and 23 July, Magyar and Bálint Ruff personally met with Botond Fülöp and Ignác Romsics, the latter having been proposed by Krisztián Ungváry and Péter Geszti as well. This fueled speculation that the Tisza Party was considering them for the presidency. Romsics, in an earlier interview, had stated that he did not consider himself suitable for the position. Fülöp had expressed a similar view about himself, noting that, given that "there are many candidates far more suitable," he "would have qualms" about accepting the office.
On 22 July, Géza Jeszenszky, while taking part in the Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp, answered in response to a question about his potential candidacy that, even if it were offered to him, he would be unable to accept the presidential office because he "is already too old for it" and had "other plans" for the future.
On 23 July, Magyar held a press conference at which he reiterated that Tisza would not conduct a "societal consultation" on the selection of the president and that the party was not considering any candidates who had been involved in Hungarian politics "in the preceding decades." Commentators noted that this likely meant that Tisza was unwilling to support the candidacy of Ákos Hadházy, Bárándy, Iványi or Márki-Zay.
On 5 August, Magyar and Ruff met with András Baka, who had been removed from the helm of the then-Supreme Court—which later continued to operate as the Curia (Kúria)—in 2011 by the second Orbán government. Due to the similarity of the meetings and photographs taken with Fülöp and Romsics two weeks earlier, the media speculated that Baka was a presidential candidate. Not long after, László Kéri, Gábor Török and Róna opined that Baka would be an excellent nominee. Török highlighted the continued relevance of the constitutional circumstances around Baka's 2011 dismissal.
Parliamentary party nominations
On 20 July, János Bóka announced that Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People's Party, despite having enough MPs to advance a nomination, would not take part in the election, as they continue to view the removal of Sulyok and other Orbán-appointed officials as unconstitutional.
On 30 July, the Our Homeland Movement announced that the party would nominate Máté Tóth for the presidency. However, László Toroczkai added that this nomination was "merely symbolic," both because the party lacks sufficient representation in the National Assembly to nominate candidate and because, according to Toroczkai, "the current situation calls for a president who is not only familiar with Hungarian public law, but also has a precise understanding of today's constitutional and political situations; furthermore, a professional well-versed in both theory and practice, and capable of truly safeguarding constitutional order." According to the party, though Tóth is not affiliated with a political party, he "consistently thinks from a national perspective and because of that is suitable for the position."
On 7 August, during a press conference, Magyar reaffirmed his party's preference for a nonpartisan head of state. This suggested that the nomination of Forsthoffer and other parliamentary politicians was unlikely. Magyar then added that Tisza's parliamentary faction would make a decision between three candidates—Baka, Fülöp and Romsics—the following day and revealed that Tisza had held private discussions with other prospective candidates as well. Magyar explained that, in his view, any of Tisza's proposed nominess would "surely be a far better president than those ones who filled the position in the past sixteen years," a reference to Pál Schmitt, János Áder, Novák, and Sulyok.
On 8 August, Magyar announced that, after an internal discussion and vote, Tisza's parliamentarians had nominated Baka for the position. As such, Baka was be the only candidate in the 11 August election; once duly elected, he will take office eight days later.
On 10 August, the National Assembly met to hear parliamentarians' nominations. Baka gathered 140, while Tóth secured 6. Consequently, Baka officially became the only qualified candidate to stand in the presidential election.
Reactions to Baka's nomination
Baka's nomination drew criticism from the right-wing parliamentary opposition parties. Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People's Party accused Baka of personally facilitating the establishment of Tisza's "authoritarian rule" by accepting the position and claimed that, like Magyar, he was driven by a desire for revenge. Our Homeland Movement, on the other hand, recalled a 2001 case in which Baka—then a judge of the European Court of Human Rights—participated in proceedings concerning the Hungarian-born János Korbély. Baka had joined the Court's 11–6 majority in ruling that Korbély's actions during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956—in which Korbély, then a police captain in his late twenties, had ordered that shots be fired on a group of revolutionaries in Tata, resulting in three deaths—did not constitute a crime against humanity.