BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian opposition leader and election winner Péter Magyar said Wednesday that the country's president had assured him in a meeting that his new government could take power in the first week of May, an accelerated timeline for the end of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's 16-year reign.
Following Magyar and his center-right Tisza party's landslide victory in Sunday's election in which it won a two-thirds parliamentary majority, the opposition leader has pushed for the transfer of power to occur as quickly as possible. Under Hungarian law, the inaugural session of the new parliament, which must elect a new prime minister, must occur no later than May 12.
Following a private consultation with President Tamás Sulyok on Wednesday, Magyar told reporters outside the presidential palace in Budapest that Sulyok had assured him that Magyar would be his nominee for the next prime minister, and that the inaugural session would likely be scheduled for the 6th or 7th of May.
“(The president) thinks, and I think everyone thinks, that it’s in the interests of the Hungarian nation that after such an overwhelming mandate from the voters, a change in government and a change of regime should happen as quickly as possible,” Magyar said.
Magyar has vowed to conduct a major overhaul of much of Hungary's governmental structure, and to create separate ministries for health, environmental protection and education that did not exist under Orbán.
In his first appearance on Hungary's public broadcaster in nearly two years on Wednesday morning, Magyar said his new government would suspend the service's news programming — which has functioned for years as a mouthpiece for Orbán's Fidesz party — until “conditions are established that are independent, objective, and impartial.”
“One of the key elements of our program is that this factory of lies will come to an end once the Tisza government is formed,” he told the host.
Magyar has called on Orbán's government to act as a caretaker in its final weeks, and not to make any decisions that could threaten Hungary's interests or impede the incoming government's work.
He said he had asked the president, who was elected by Orbán's majority in parliament, to resign after the formation of the new government, something Sulyok said he would “consider.”
“I repeated to him that he is unworthy of embodying the unity of the Hungarian nation, and unfit to be the guardian of the law,” Magyar said, adding that if Sulyok does not resign, his new government will make constitutional changes to remove him “along with all the other puppets that the Orbán system has installed.”
Because Tisza secured a supermajority of two-thirds of seats in parliament, the new government will have the power to change the constitution and roll back many of Orbán's policies.
Peter Magyar, leader of the election-winning Tisza Party, talks to the media before meeting Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok in the presidential Alexander Palace in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday April 15, 2026. (Robert Hegedus/MTI via AP)
Peter Magyar, leader of the election-winning Tisza Party, talks to the media before meeting Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok in the presidential Alexander Palace in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday April 15, 2026. (Robert Hegedus/MTI via AP)
Peter Magyar, leader of the election-winning Tisza Party, talks to the media before meeting Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok in the presidential Alexander Palace in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday April 15, 2026. (Robert Hegedus/MTI via AP)
LONDON (AP) — The ex-civil servant behind the decision to approve Peter Mandelson 's appointment as British ambassador to Washington says he felt political pressure to rush through the appointment despite security concerns.
Olly Robbins, former head of the Foreign Office, said those concerns did not relate to Mandelson's relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He declined to say when questioned by lawmakers what led the government's vetting agency to flag Mandelson as a potential security risk.
Robbins said the vetting agency considered Mandelson a “borderline case” and was “leaning toward recommending against” giving him security clearance.
The Foreign Office decided to clear him anyway. Robbins was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week over the decision. Starmer is facing questions about his own judgment, and calls to resign, over the appointment.
Robbins told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that there was an “atmosphere of pressure” coming from Starmer’s office.
He said there was “a very, very strong expectation” that Mandelson “needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible.”
Robbins said there was “a generally dismissive attitude” to the security vetting in January 2025, before Mandelson went to Washington.
Starmer acknowledged on Monday that he made the wrong judgment when he picked Mandelson for the job. But he said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he’d known about the security vetting.
Starmer has placed blame squarely on Foreign Office officials, who he said failed to tell him about the security concerns and approved Mandelson’s appointment despite them.
He called it “frankly staggering” that officials didn’t tell him about the failed vetting, which took place in January 2025. Starmer says he only found out last week.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
He has ordered a review into any security concerns arising from Mandelson’s access to sensitive information while ambassador.
Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He picked Mandelson as ambassador despite being warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein exposed the government to “reputational risk.”
Mandelson’s business links to Russia and China also set off alarm bells. But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The scandal has caused gloom among lawmakers in Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings. Starmer already defused one potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to resign over the Mandelson appointment.
Mandelson is under police investigation for suspected misconduct in public office after a trove of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January included emails suggesting Mandelson had passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.
British police launched a criminal probe and arrested Mandelson in February. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.
FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
Peter Mandelson is seen with his dog outside his home in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 to face a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
