Katalin Novák announced her resignation in a televised speech.
President of Hungary Katalin Novák has resigned from his position.
Novák’s resignation was widely demanded after it was recently revealed that the president had pardoned the deputy director of an orphanage convicted of covering up the sexual abuse of children in April 2023.
– I made a mistake. Today is the last day I will speak to you as president, Novák said in his televised speech announcing his resignation.
The deputy director of the orphanage was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 for covering up cases of abuse at the orphanage. The perpetrator was the director of an orphanage who has been sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing at least ten children between 2004 and 2016.
Yesterday, Friday, thousands of people gathered in front of the presidential palace in Budapest to demand the president’s resignation.
Novák was Hungary’s first female president and the youngest president in the country’s history. He is the prime minister Viktor Orbán a close party colleague. Before his presidency, Novák, who was profiled as a guardian of traditional family values, served as Hungary’s Minister of Family.
In Hungary, the president’s role is mainly ceremonial, and the power rests with the prime minister.
In addition to Novák’s resignation, the country’s former Minister of Justice Judit Varga announced his retirement from public office because he had given his consent to amnesty. He left the position of Minister of Justice earlier to focus on managing the EU election campaign of the ruling party Fidesz.
In the same context, a far-right activist convicted of terrorism was pardoned, but this did not cause a significant scandal in Hungary.
Sources: Reuters, AP, AFP, STT