On July 13, 2026, Hungary's parliament voted to remove President Tamás Sulyok from office. This wasn't done through a normal firing process. Instead, the new Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, changed the country's constitution to force Sulyok out. The whole battle took about six weeks.

Why couldn't Magyar just fire him? Hungary's government structure doesn't have a standard way to remove a president quickly. There's no impeachment clause designed for that job. So Magyar did something much more dramatic: he rewrote the constitution itself. This made the process harder and more controversial, but once it worked, it changed the rules for future presidents too.

People argued about whether this was fair. By early July, critics were already saying that the government was using the constitution as a tool to win a political fight, rather than following the spirit of the law.

Sulyok became president under the old government. When Viktor Orbán was prime minister, Sulyok took office and performed the normal duties of a president: approving laws, awarding honors. In April 2026, Hungarians held elections. Péter Magyar won and became the new prime minister. But Sulyok stayed in his job.

Here's the problem. Sulyok was still in power months after the new government took over. He could still sign or delay documents, and he had other powers too. In a parliamentary system—where the prime minister runs the government—this creates tension. Imagine a president from the old team still controlling certain levers while a new team tries to govern. That's what was happening.

Orbán himself explained it before he left office. He said the president—meaning Sulyok—had real power, including a say in when elections happen. So when Magyar became prime minister, he didn't want to wait out Sulyok's term or work around him. He decided to change the constitution and remove him.

Magyar had already made other moves to signal a clean break with the past. One of his first acts was to open Orbán's old offices to the public. Removing Sulyok was the tougher version of the same message: the new government wasn't just changing how things looked—it was reshaping the actual power structure it inherited.

One big question remains unanswered: who becomes president now? The government hasn't explained how a new president will be chosen or who runs the country in the meantime. Since the removal process was already controversial, how they fill this vacancy will probably cause more debate.