Hungary's radical rightwing leader Viktor Orban is facing his biggest political crisis since taking office in 2010 following the resignation of President Katalin Novak and former justice minister Judit Varga over a scandal involving the pardon of a man convicted of covering up a sexual abuse case in a children’s home.

House Speaker Laszlo Kover will assume the role of president until parliament approves the next head of state. In a potentially ironic turn of events, it could be up Orban's most vocal anti-EU and anti-American cadre who signs the ratification of Sweden's Nato membership, once parliament gives the green light, expected later this month. 

While the public was still digesting the news, the former husband of  Varga unleashed a scathing criticism on social media, accusing inner circles of the prime minister of orchestrating the clemency case.

The scandal has significantly tarnished the meticulously cultivated image of the ruling Fidesz party as a staunch protector of family values and children against "gender ideologies" from Western Europe and comes just four months before the European Parliament and local government elections.

The 46-year-old head of state announced her resignation in a live broadcast on state media on February 10, a few hours after landing in Budapest as she cut short her official visit to Qatar.

After gauging public opinion, Fidesz backed off from supporting the president on Thursday after the prime minister announced the 13th amendment of the constitution, which would curtail the power of the president in clemency concerning paedophilia.

"I decided in favour of clemency in April of last year in the belief that the convict did not abuse the vulnerability of the children entrusted to him. I made a mistake," Novak said Saturday. "I apologise to those I have hurt and to any victims who may have felt I am not standing up for them."

Novak however failed to give reasons as to why she granted a pardon in the first place to Endre Konya, the former deputy director of a children’s home in Bicske, not far from Budapest and just a stone’s throw from Felcsut, the home village of the prime minister.

The man was convicted for more than three years of pressuring victims to retract their claims of sexual abuse by the institution's director, who was sentenced to eight years for abusing at least 10 children between 2004 and 2016.

Novak, a key Orban ally and a former vice president of Fidesz, served as the minister for families until her appointment to the presidency in 2022. She was the first female president in Hungary's history, and the youngest person to ever hold the office.

Just like Varga, Novak was a prime marketing product of  Orban, who wanted more women in the upper ranks of the party dominated by males to appeal to voters, analysts said.

Novak had built up the image of a sporty, housewife-mother and she was seen by many as the most approachable Fidesz politician. Varga, also fluent in many languages, played the violin and was good at football, rose to the higher ranks with her canny style and as justice minister fought vicious battles in Brussels to defend Orban's illiberal policies and hollowing out of the country's democracy. 

Both politicians became the face of Fidesz in the last five years with their strong social media outreach.

Novak is the second president to resign from office since Orban’s reign after former Olympic champion Pal Schmidt acknowledged plagiarism in 2012. 

Hungary’s leader was facing a dilemma of whether to sack two of the most loyal politicians as public discontent grew.

Keeping them in place would have carried huge political risks, sending the message that covering up paedophile acts was ok. The decision to sacrifice the two prominent politicians may trigger new fault lines within the party and its nomenclature under the tight grip of the prime minister. 

As in all major issues, Fidesz was gauging people’s opinions on the issue and asking the public whether they would support the resignation of Novak and Varga.

As public outcry grew, Fidesz had no other choice  to quell the protests. Thousands gathered on Friday night in front of the president's palace in the picturesque Castle District organised by the liberal Momentum party.  A few hundred demonstrators were gathering on Saturday just as Novak was delivering her speech on state media.

Chronology of a crisis

Novak gave clemency to at least two dozen people last April ahead of the Pope's visit to Hungary in April 2023. Among them was convicted terrorist Gyorgy Budahazy, sentenced to 17 years for carrying out attacks against politicians of the then ruling Socialist-liberal coalition. The decision was cheered by the radical Our Homeland party and was seen as a gesture by Fidesz to the far right.

The clemency in the sexual abuse case came to public discourse by accident, when Independent 444.hu reported on February 2 that defendants in the case were notified by Hungary’s highest court that Endre K appealed the decision but the case had been dropped since. 

Despite efforts by Orban’s vast and mighty propaganda machine to downplay the significance of the case, the story grew bigger and bigger as days passed. Novak’s reaction was that she did not pardon anyone found guilty of pedophilia and said it is the discretion of the president not to give a reason for presidential pardons.

The government-affiliated press was also deflecting criticism by claiming that no paedophile had been pardoned, even though no one was claiming that. 

The government was holding a three-day cabinet meeting outside Budapest when the story broke. The first reaction was that the clemency was an autonomous decision of the president, which must be respected. Those consuming Fidesz loyal media only had scant knowledge of the background story for days as the government and was waiting for the dust to settle was waiting on how public sentiment evolved.

Pro-government pundits in the meantime tried to shift the blame to leftist parties for not approving the act for the protection of children, known better as the anti-LGBT law in 2021 There was a bipartisan consensus on the issue until the very end when Fidesz added new passages to the law, which stigmatised LGBT people and conflated sexual and gender diversity with paedophilia. Orban’s propagandists since have used that as a whiplash against political opponents.

On Thursday  Orban broke the silence and announced the government will propose an amendment to the constitution that would prevent those convicted of crimes against children from receiving presidential pardons. This was widely interpreted as an acknowledgment of the erroneous decision of the president and an attempt by the prime to diffuse the growing crisis, making him look like a proactive player.

It was the first sign that the government was withdrawing its support from Novak. 

Experts have warned earlier that it is not the lack of legal recourse that is hindering victims to speak out against sexual abuse but there are systematic flaws in the system such as the vetting of employees, and the protection of whistleblowers. Much like the rest of the social sphere in Hungary, institutions like children's homes are seriously underfunded.

As public anger grew against the president, Fidesz shifted to higher gear in gauging public opinion, which is the cornerstone of its governance. The party is spending hundreds of millions of euros each year on opinion polls, before launching new campaigns against political opponents or introducing new social or economic policies. 

According to observers, Novak received the "silken cord" on Friday when Fidesz caucus leader Mate Kocsis demanded explanations of the clemency and said there were grounds for criticism.

A day later Fidesz founder and its most influential media personality Zsolt Bayer repeated the calls in a long opinion piece which mostly consisted of bashing opposition and foreign leftist and liberal politicians for supposedly supporting paedopila. Shortly afterwards, Hungary’s state news agency, which has not reported a single story on the evolving crisis between February 5 and February 8, reported that Novak is set to cut short her visit to Qatar. And the rest is history.

Political reactions

Mate Kocsis, the parliamentary leader of Fidesz,  said  Novak and Varga hadmade a responsible decision, which is evidence that, when it comes to the right wing, mistakes have consequences, while on the left, even crimes do not. This same message was echoed by pro-Orban propagandists on social media.

The prime minister, who is also active on Facebook, has yet to comment on the decision.

Opposition parties are demanding an explanation from the prime minister, whether he had any knowledge of the case before it broke out.

They called for a direct vote on the president as they feared that the next appointee to the post, which is mostly ceremonial, would again be a cadre loyal to the prime minister. The Socialists are demanding that Orban  restore the institution of the presidency, which should express the unity of the nation, rather than just a party hack.

Momentum, which had earlier announced demonstrations for every night until Novak resigned, is pointing to the responsibility of the prime minister. "We know well that no major decisions are taken without the consent of Viktor Orban in Fidesz," party leader Anna Donath posted.

The fact that two out of the three Fidesz-appointed presidents wound up disgraced and scandal-ridden clearly shows "the intellectual and moral quagmire into which Orban and his party have dragged our country", the liberal Dialogue-Green party said. 

So far there is scant evidence connecting Endre Konya to the Orban family, according to the local press, which reported that one of Orban’s brothers had a working contact with the deputy director of the Bicske children's home, who is also a psychologist and a gym teacher. The boys of the children's home took part in wrestling practices at one of his wrestling clubs.

After the resignation of Novak,  Konya, who fled back to Transylvania after the scandal broke out, said he would have withdrawn his clemency plea, had he known the consequences. In a long Facebook post, he denied responsibility for covering up the abuses. It remains unknown however who filed the plea requests to the court, which was automatically passed on to the president through the justice minister, according to the protocol. The whole procedure ends with the justice minister, who has the right to refuse to countersign any presidential pardon without justification. 

The lack of checks and balances in the system also contributed to the crisis, analysts opined, recalling a 1998 case, when Orban’s first justice minister refused to sign a clemency plea of President Arpad Goncz, a liberal politician supported by Free Democrats.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, writes Orban critic journalist Laszlo Bartus of Amerikai Nepszva, who claims that the prime minister has to preserve the appearance of infallibility by sacrificing two of his key politicians, seen as his puppets.  Given the current structure of power with Orban at the centre, it is inconceivable, according to Bartus, that the prime minister was not aware of the pardon granted to Konya, he argues.

While Orban is trying to distance himself from being implicated in the case, there are signs that this will be challenging, and a Facebook post by one of the insiders of the business elite reflects growing discontent within the party and its elite.

"I do not want to be part of a system where those responsible hide behind women's skirts and sacrifice others," wrote Peter Magyar, the former husband of Varga, who has held various high-paying jobs at state-owned companies. Magyar said he is quitting all his positions, including his post as a board member of s of MBH Bank, the country's second-largest lender owned in part by Lorinc Meszaros, Hungary's most powerful oligarch.

"I have come to understand that the concept of national sovereignty was merely a political construct, a facade designed to conceal the workings of a power machine and facilitate the accumulation of immense wealth", he continues.

"I believe Hungary is more than the country ruled by oligarchs, a few influential families, and the likes of Antal Rogans," he adds.

Magyar’s scathing confession is a rare sign of confrontation with the utmost levels of the regime as he specifically implicates  Rogan, head of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, who is in charge of all government communication issues and oversees Hungary’s intelligence services. 

His comments suggest that Rogan and others were pulling the strings and that both Novak and Varga had no other choice but to obey commands, but they were the ones had to ultimately take responsibility.

Magyar published a new post on Sunday saying he will be targeted by Rogan's progaganda machine. "I am aware I will be considered a traitor, criminal, vengeful, psychopath, drug addict, child abuser, Brussels supporter, Soros lackey, war advocate, etc. I am none of these."

Freedom always comes at a price, sometimes a huge one, but there comes a point, where there is no room to retreat, he added.