Following the victory of Péter Magyar’s Respect and Freedom Party (TISZA), which ended the 16-year rule of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP alliance, Magyar will be appointed as Prime Minister on 9th May during the first sitting of the new parliament. The new Cabinet proposed by Magyar places a high degree of focus on professionalism, featuring several lead policy figures and policy experts with extensive private-sector experience. The Cabinet composition also reflects ideological diversity, in line with TISZA’s ‘catch-all’ nature as a political movement.
Under the revised cabinet structure, which will include 16 ministries, key members include former global Vodafone executive Anita Orbán as Foreign Minister and Deputy PM, former global Shell executive István Kapitány as Economy and Energy Minister, former State Secretary András Kármán as Finance Minister, orthopaedic surgeon Zsolt Hegedűs as Health Minister and former army chief Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi as Defence Minister. Popular political commentator Bálint Ruff will take over as Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, responsible for institutional, governance and anti-corruption reforms.
The 199-member parliament will feature 141 MPs from TISZA, 52 MPs from the main opposition Fidesz-KDNP and six MPs from the nationalist opposition Our Homeland. TISZA Vice President Ágnes Forsthoffer, a former tourism industry professional, will serve as Speaker of the National Assembly, while Andrea Bujdosó, TISZA’s former group leader at the Budapest City Council, will become the party’s Parliamentary Group Leader. Under the revised parliamentary committee structure, TISZA will oversee 14 of the 19 permanent committees, as well as the four subcommittees.
The new government’s most immediate priority is to secure billions of euros in blocked EU recovery and cohesion funding, with the exact details yet to be decided. TISZA also promised to revise the country’s personal income tax system (PIT), create favourable taxation conditions for SMEs and introduce a wealth tax above HUF 1 billion. In parallel, incoming Finance Minister András Kármán also discussed Hungary’s potential adoption of the euro post-2030, with the exact objectives yet to be outlined.
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