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Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar said the country will once again be a strong European and NATO ally as he vowed to restore its place in Europe.
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Magyar was speaking in central Budapest in front of thousands of supporters after securing a landslide victory over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party.
“Hungary will once again be a strong ally representing Hungarian interests, because our country’s place is in Europe,” Magyar said.
He added that his first foreign trips will be to Warsaw and Vienna, after which he will visit Brussels in a bid to persuade the EU to unlock billions of euros in frozen funds.
“We will bring home the EU funds that are due to the Hungarian people,” he said.
To this end, he promised to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the body which investigates transnational and complex financial crimes.
“We will restore the system of checks and balances. We will join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. We guarantee the democratic functioning of our country.”
Magyar also called on Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok to resign immediately after asking him to form a government. He sent the same message to other state leaders appointed by Viktor Orbán. During the campaign, Tisza accused those officials of representing party interests.
“I call on the President of the Republic to immediately ask the winner to form a government and then leave office. I call on all the puppets who have been in power for the past 16 years to do the same,” he said.
He mentioned the Presidents of the Curia, the Judicial Office, the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, the State Audit Office, the Economic Competition Authority and the head of the media authority.
“Let them leave, leave. Don’t wait until we send them away,” Magyar said.
He also praised his party’s victory as a historic mandate and called on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to refrain from any measures that would limit the incoming government’s powers.
“If a serious decision or question arises regarding our nation during the hopefully short period of transition, please feel free to call me, you know my phone number.”
With almost 99% of the votes counted, Tisza is well on course to take a comfortable two-thirds majority of 138 seats in the 199-seat Hungarian Parliament.
According to data from the National Election Commission, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz could retain 55 seats. And the far-right Our Homeland Movement is on course to enter Parliament as a third party with six.
More than 90,000 Hungarians cast their ballots at voting stations abroad while some 224,000 voted somewhere other than their official address. Those votes will be counted in the coming days meaning it will be a little while yet before 100% of the ballots are counted.