The lawmakers of Hungary’s ruling Tisza party ​unanimously support chess legend Judit Polgar for president and will ‌make afinal decision about the nomination at their ​next meeting, the parliamentary group’s leader ⁠Andrea Bujdoso said on Monday (July 20, 2026).

Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Sunday (July 19, 2026) that he would ask Ms. Polgar, widely regarded as the ‌greatest ever female chess player, to take up the largely ceremonial role of President until ‌a new constitution is passed.

On Saturday (July 18, 2026), Tamas ‌Sulyok ⁠signed a constitutional amendment passed by Tisza that ⁠ended his term as president.

Electing a new President and drafting a new constitution are key elements of Mr. Magyar’s drive to dismantle ​former premier Viktor Orban’s ‌bastions of power, for which Magyar says he received a strong mandate from voters.

Mr. Magyar ended the 16-year rule of Mr. Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party with a ‌landslide election victory in April.

Parliament, where Mr. Magyar’s ​party has a two-thirds majority that allows it to change any laws, will elect ⁠a new president who will be in office until a planned new constitution takes effect, or for a maximum ‌of five years.

Mr. Bujdoso said Tisza’s parliamentary group had agreed after a long discussion that Ms. Polgar, 49, was “patriotic, honourable, empathetic, brave, outstanding and dedicated in her profession”, and “able to express the nation’s unity”.

Ms. Polgar could not be reached for comment.

“The President of the ‌republic must be a person who guards the unity of the ​nation and constitutionality,” Magyar told parliament.

Ms. Polgar, subject of the documentary “Queen of Chess” released in February, ⁠is the only female player to have been ranked ⁠in the world’s top 10 of what is a male-dominated sport.

She is the only woman ‌to have crossed the rating of 2700, the threshold that many consider the definition of a “Super Grandmaster”.

Hungary’s president signed a constitutional amendment into law on Saturday (July 18, 2026) that ends his term in office, bringing to a close a dispute between him and the country’s new government that was seeking to oust him as part of a purge of officials appointed during the reign of Viktor Orbán.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who defeated the long-serving Mr. Orbán in a blowout election in April, had repeatedly called on the Orbán-appointed President, Tamás Sulyok, to resign, arguing he had failed to live up to his role as President by neglecting to stand in the way of antidemocratic steps by Mr. Orbán’s government.

When Mr. Sulyok refused, lawmakers with Mr. Magyar’s pro-European, centre-right Tisza party passed a constitutional amendment this week that called for an immediate end to his term. Mr. Sulyok had five days to sign the amendment into law, which he did on the final day before the deadline.

In a video posted to Facebook on Saturday (July 18) evening, Mr. Sulyok — whom Mr. Magyar had frequently referred to as Mr. Orbán’s “puppet” — said that being made to sign the amendment was “lasting proof that the fundamental values of a free society, the rule of law, democracy, the principle of power-sharing, have been trampled on in the interest of power.”

Mr. Sulyok’s term will officially end at midnight on Monday (July 20), when speaker of Parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, will automatically assume his duties until lawmakers elect a new President, a task which has a 30-day deadline.

Since taking office in May, Mr. Magyar’s administration has quickly gone to work dismantling what he calls Mr. Orbán’s “mafia” by removing numerous political appointees and heads of institutions viewed as having facilitated Mr. Orbán’s autocratic government.

The new government suspended the news service of Hungary’s public television and radio — which Mr. Magyar has argued served as a “propaganda factory” for Mr. Orbán’s party — and shuttered Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Office, an authority seen by Mr. Orbán’s opponents as a tool for intimidating critics and silencing independent media.

The amendment which removed Mr. Sulyok also made some judicial reforms, set up an office aimed at investigating financial abuses under the Mr. Orbán government, and imposed a 12-year term limit on lawmakers.

In a Facebook post on Saturday (July 18), Mr. Orbán responded to Mr. Sulyok’s signing of the amendment by writing that “tyranny is no longer a threat, but a reality.”

“If this could be done to the President of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe,” Mr. Orbán wrote.

But in a video statement on Facebook on Saturday (July 18), Mr. Magyar said that by passing the amendment, “we have fulfilled several of our important commitments and returned what the Orbán regime tried to take away from the Hungarian people for many years.”

He added he would convene his party on Monday (July 20) to discuss its nomination for a next President.