Hungary’s now ex-president Katalin Novák, embroiled in a pardon scandal, officially ceased to be head of state when the country’s parliament accepted her resignation and immediately elected her successor.

Hungary was rocked by a major political scandal last month that resulted in Novák, the country’s former president and a close Orbán ally, resigning amid outrage over a pardon granted to a man implicated in a child sex abuse case.

On 10 February, Novák announced her resignation as it emerged that she had pardoned a man who had covered up for the paedophile director of a children’s home last April.

“I decided to pardon because I was convinced that the convict had not abused the vulnerability of the children in his care. I was wrong because the decision to pardon and the lack of justification were likely to cast doubt on the zero tolerance of paedophilia”, she said at the time.

She then apologised to any victims who felt she had failed to stand up for them but provided no explanation as to why she pardoned him.

Since then, Novák has completely disappeared from public view. Although she had the opportunity to speak one last time in parliament before the vote, Novák did not attend the session.

As for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, after remaining silent on the pardon scandal for quite some time, he finally spoke about it in his annual report from 17 February, saying that Novák had made the right decision by resigning, even though he called her departure a great loss for Hungary.

The year “2024 couldn’t have begun worse. It’s like a nightmare. It affects all of us,” said Orbán, who described Novák as a president who had worked for the country’s people and their families and had represented Hungary in the world with dignity.

After accepting Novák’s resignation, parliament voted in Tamás Sulyok, the ruling party’s presidential candidate.

While Sulyok will not be sworn in until 5 March, László Kövér, the speaker of the Hungarian parliament, will assume the president’s duties and powers until then.

Kövér already served as Hungary’s president in 2012, following the resignation of former president Pál Schmitt, and served for more than a month.

(Charles Szumski with Telex.hu)

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