Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a close ally of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, resigned on Saturday after mounting pressure from the opposition over pardoning a man convicted in a child sexual abuse case. Soon after Novak's recognition, another Orban supporter former justice minister Judit Varga, who had emerged as a rising star in Orban's ruling Fidesz party, announced her resignation as a lawmaker over the outrage, Reuters reported.
The resignation came in a week after her presidential pardon was reported by local news site 444. hu. The opposition politicians began building pressure for resignation after Novak granted pardon to a former deputy director of a children's home who had allegedly covered up his boss's sexual abuse of the children in their charge, reported NDTV. Thousands of demonstrators protested outside Novak's office on Friday evening asking her to quit.
The 46-year-old former president who was named as the most influential woman in Hungarian public life by Forbes magazine in 2023, resigned on state television saying "I am resigning from my post. I made a mistake...Today is the last day that I address you as a president."
The former minister for family affairs, Novak, said, "I apologise to those who I hurt and all the victims who may have had the impression that I did not support them. I am, I was and I will remain in favour of protecting children and families," she added.
"I made a decision to grant a pardon last April believing that the convict did not abuse the vulnerability of children whom he had overseen. I made a mistake as the pardon and the lack of reasoning was suitable to trigger doubts over the zero tolerance that applies to paedophilia," Novak said.
The scandal marked a rare setback for Orban, who has maintained his position of power since 2010 and is currently navigating European parliament elections amid the country's recovery from an inflation crisis. For years, Orban has advocated for safeguarding children from what he characterizes as LGBTQ activists roaming the nation's schools. This has been one of many points of contention between Orban and the European Commission, reported Reuters.
In an attempt to mitigate the political fallout, Orban himself presented a constitutional amendment to parliament late on Thursday, aiming to strip the president of the authority to pardon crimes committed against children. Certain political analysts viewed this action as a direct message to Novak.
After Novak's resignation, the Speaker of Parliament Laszlo Kover will temporarily replace the former president. This makes Hungary's political landscape even more male-dominant as there have been no women in Orban's 16-man cabinet since mid-2023.