Hungary’s Péter Magyar was sworn in as prime minister on Saturday, bringing to an end Viktor Orbán’s 16-year tenure and starting what supporters described as a new political chapter. Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer who founded the Tisza party in 2024, entered the parliament building in Budapest as lawmakers took their oaths, and then addressed tens of thousands gathered outside parliament on Kossuth Square.
In his remarks to the crowd, Magyar framed the transition as both a promise of change and a call for national unity. He told supporters: “Today, every freedom-loving person in the world would like to be Hungarian a little,” and later said to roaring applause, “You have taught the country and the world that it is the most ordinary, flesh-and-blood people that can defeat the most vicious tyranny.” He also said voters had given him a mandate to open a new chapter in Hungary’s history.
The election that brought Magyar to power gave Tisza a two-thirds majority in the 199-seat parliament. On Saturday, Tisza took 141 seats, while Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition won 52 seats and the far-right Mi Hazánk won six, according to the distribution described by the Associated Press. The lawmakers who took their oaths—140 of Magyar’s party representatives and the 199 representatives in total—did so at around 11 a.m., and Orbán was not among those taking oaths for the first time since Hungary’s first post-Communist parliament formed in 1990.
Magyar had earlier called on Hungarians to attend an all-day “regime-change” celebration on Kossuth Square, and many of those gathered waved Hungarian and EU flags and wore Tisza T-shirts. In his speech, Magyar delivered a message of unity and promised to help heal divisions he said Orbán’s government had sown. The inauguration also included symbolism aimed at resetting relations with Europe: the EU flag was raised on the parliament building’s facade Saturday afternoon for the first time since Orbán’s government removed it in 2014.
On the policy front, Magyar said his priorities include repairing ties with the EU and unlocking EU funds frozen during Orbán’s time in office over rule-of-law and corruption concerns. He also said restoring Hungary’s standing among Western democracies is part of the new administration’s agenda, after what AP described as Orbán’s drift toward Russia and repeated EU vetoes during his premiership. Officials and supporters around the inauguration tied that goal to economic needs, including the desire to unlock about 17 billion euros, or $20 billion, in frozen EU funding.
As Hungary’s new government begins work, the political balance in the National Assembly is expected to shape how quickly changes can be made. The AP report said Magyar’s administration is expected to roll back policies that critics say earned Orbán a reputation as a far-right authoritarian. Several comments from people at the celebration echoed expectations for a return to European alignment and domestic institutional integrity. One attendee, 27-year-old web designer Áron Farsang, said he expected the new government to restore democratic institutions and “lead us back toward the European Union,” adding that he would like to “get rid of the Russian influence as soon as possible,” citing energy dependency and political style.
Magyar also drew a line under the Orbán era in how he described accountability for the past. He called on Fidesz-appointed heads of government institutions, including President Tamás Sulyok, to resign no later than May 31. He said his government plans to form a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office to investigate and seek to recover public funds that were misused during Orbán’s tenure, and he vowed to suspend the news services of Hungary’s public broadcaster until objectivity can be restored.
The AP report also highlighted changes in parliament’s makeup, including an increase in women lawmakers. Hungary’s National Assembly has 54 women lawmakers, most from the Tisza party—more than a quarter of the total and the most in Hungary’s history. Andrea Szepesi, an economist from Budapest, told The Associated Press that it was “about time” more women held seats in parliament, and she said that under Orbán’s rule there were fewer women in government than in nearly all EU countries.
While the inauguration ceremony marked the formal start of Magyar’s term, many at the celebration said they saw Saturday as the beginning of a longer political reckoning. AP reported that many of the nearly 3.4 million Hungarians who voted for Tisza expect Magyar to hold Fidesz officials and business allies accountable for alleged misconduct tied to the outgoing administration.