Hungarian President Katalin Novák Resigns – The Full Story Behind the Pardon Scandal

Unraveling the controversy: from presidential pardon to political fallout

11 February 2024

Iván László Nagy

Marcin Król Fellow

Viktor Orbán lost another president to public embarrassment. In 2012, President Pál Schmitt resigned following a plagiarism scandal. Katalin Novák’s resignation, however, is a lot more about Orbán than about her. We have summarised the details of one of the most turbulent weeks in modern Hungarian politics.

The resignation of Katalin Novák: a timeline of events

On 10 February, Hungarian President Katalin Novák resigned in a televised speech.

The decision followed a disastrous week for her, Fidesz and Viktor Orbán.

On 2 February, Hungarian media outlets received a Supreme Court judgement, which revealed that in April 2023, Novák gave a presidential pardon to a certain Endre K., a convicted paedophile accomplice.

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Iván László Nagy

Marcin Król Fellow

Ivan L. Nagy is a Fellow at Visegrad Insight from Budapest, currently working for the Columbia Journalism Review in New York. Prior to his move to the US, he was an analyst, opinion writer and the head of podcasts at HVG, a leading independent news outlet in Hungary. His work focuses primarily on democratic security and right-wing populism in the CEE region. He is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School's MA programme.

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