Hungary’s Parliament Elects András Baka as New President
Hungary’s parliament has elected lawyer and former Supreme Court President András Baka as the country’s new president in a secret ballot. Baka was nominated by the ruling Tisza Party and received 140 votes.
Telex reports this.
Baka’s candidacy received 140 votes, while six voted against. Representatives of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party and the Christian Democratic People’s Party announced they would not participate in the vote. Instead, they went to lay wreaths at the monument commemorating the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
After his election, Baka declared that he considered his appointment as president a great honor. At the same time, he noted that Hungary was experiencing a profound crisis and serious social divisions.
The newly elected president also stated that Hungary must remain part of Europe. He believes the head of state must maintain neutrality toward political parties while simultaneously defending the fundamental principles of the constitutional order, the European Union, and the country itself.
Who is András Baka?
András Baka is a lawyer by profession. From 1991 to 2008, he worked at the European Court of Human Rights.
In 2009, Baka became the head of Hungary’s Supreme Court. However, following the 2011 constitutional reform, he was dismissed. Baka himself stated that this was due to his public condemnation of Viktor Orbán’s government’s judicial reform. The ECHR subsequently found that his rights had been violated in this situation.
At the same time, Baka’s candidacy was criticized by opposition representatives due to his previous decisions on cases related to the events of 1956 and 2006.
In particular, the representative of the Christian Democratic People’s Party, Bence Retvári, stated that during his work at the ECHR, Baka allegedly acquitted one of the defendants in cases involving the shooting of protesters during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Our Homeland party leader Laszlo Torotsky also criticized Baka for its decision to pay compensation to those injured by police during the suppression of anti-government protests in 2006, calling them “victims of political terror.”
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