STORY: Tamas Sulyok elected as Hungary's new president
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 26, 2024
DATELINE: Feb. 27, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:05
LOCATION: Budapest
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian): TAMAS SULYOK, Hungarian President-Elect
2. various of Parliament exterior
3. various of voting result announcement

STORYLINE:

Hungarian lawmakers on Monday elected Tamas Sulyok, head of the Constitutional Court, as the country's new president.

Out of the 199 lawmakers, 146 participated in the voting, with 134 votes in favor, five against and seven invalid.

Most opposition lawmakers did not participate in the vote. The opposition parties failed to reach an agreement on a common candidate to challenge.

Sulyok said last Thursday upon his nomination:

SOUNDBITE (Hungarian): TAMAS SULYOK, Hungarian President-Elect
"As a jurist, and in my role as the President of the Republic, my foremost commitment is to serve the public good and to embody the nation's unity, all the while upholding the fundamental values of the law."

Sulyok's predecessor Katalin Novak stepped down on Feb. 10 following a child abuse pardon scandal.

Sulyok has been elected for a mandate of five years and can be re-elected for one more term according to the fundamental law. His inaugural ceremony will take place on March 5.

Following his election, Sulyok said that he wanted to be a "president of trust."

"For me, all power can only be interpreted within the framework of the law. The law carries values, its central function is the fair complementation of competing values," he added.

Born on March 24, 1956 in Kiskunfelegyhaza in southern Hungary, Sulyok boasts a distinguished career in both law and academia. After graduating from Jozsef Attila University in Szeged in 1980, he furthered his legal expertise with a European law qualification in 2004 and a PhD in 2013.

Sulyok's professional journey encompassed roles as a judicial clerk, legal adviser, lawyer, and honorary consul of Austria in Szeged. He has served as a guest lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Szeged since 2005.

He has assumed the role of deputy president of the Constitutional Court since 2015 while he was elected president of the Constitutional Court in 2016.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Budapest.
(XHTV)