New president of the republic inaugurated, made anti-Russia statements

HUNGARY - In Brief 16 May 2022 by Istvan Racz

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On May 14, Katalin Novák, the first woman in Hungary's history to be the president of the public for five years was inaugurated, replacing János Áder, whose 5-year term had expired.It is quite rare in Hungary that anything about the president of the republic, who is elected by parliament and has no executive role at all, is an important political event. However, this time is different.Mr. Áder, a founding father of Fidesz, was once sent by PM Orbán to the presidential office to remove a potential opponent, according to a number of political analysts. Missing appropriate language skills and being pretty colourless and mediocre in diplomatic and public communication, he remained quite isolated and unpopular for his entire term. On the contrary, Ms. Novák, also a hard-core Fidesz politician, is much more of a political product of Mr. Orbán. She speaks a few foreign languages, has appreciable public communication skills, looks like more of a lovable person, so to say, and as a cabinet minister responsible for family affairs until very recently, she used to be the communicator of good news for the domestic public, in the form of various government subsidies to families, for quite a long while. On inauguration day, she opened up the presidential palace for ordinary visitors, and mixed up with them freely for a chat and selfies. As a woman in a political system heavily dominated by men, she may be able to earn extra support for Fidesz if the public mood happened to turn for the worse for whatever reason.But more than this, Ms. Novák made a few interesting foreign policy remarks in her inauguration speech, on the sensitive subject of the Ukrainian war. Speaking in the name of ...