Péter Magyar met Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok at the presidential palace on Wednesday and pressed for the new National Assembly to convene on May 4, the day official election results from Sunday's landslide are expected, so he can form a cabinet by mid-May.

The meeting, three days after Magyar's Tisza party won a supermajority of roughly two-thirds of parliament's 199 seats, set the tempo for a transition that the incoming prime minister wants completed weeks ahead of the constitutional deadline. Magyar also demanded that Sulyok resign, called him unfit to hold office and took his first-ever live appearances on Hungary's state broadcasters — outlets that had refused him airtime for more than a year.

Presidential standoff

Sulyok wrote on social media that he had told Magyar he would convene parliament "at the earliest possible date after the final result is announced" and would "officially propose" Magyar as prime minister at the first session. Magyar said the vote to elect the new government was likely to fall on May 6 or 7, though he wanted it sooner.

On the resignation demand, the president offered no public commitment. Magyar told reporters afterward that Sulyok said he would consider it, but the president's office had signaled to Hungarian media that he would not step down. Magyar said Sulyok "is unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation" and "is not fit to serve as a moral authority or a role model."

State media confrontation

Before the palace meeting, Magyar appeared on state-run Kossuth radio and M1 TV for the first time since September 2024. He confirmed plans to suspend their news coverage and form a new broadcast authority modeled on the BBC to ensure press freedom. "Every Hungarian deserves a public service media that broadcasts the truth," he told Kossuth radio. He clashed repeatedly with interviewers, accusing them of broadcasting propaganda under the previous government.

Magyar said 70 to 80 percent of Hungary's media had been controlled by allies of outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

EU funds, Ukraine veto

Magyar spoke Tuesday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about unlocking an estimated 17 billion euros in suspended EU funding, plus 16 billion euros in pending defense loans. Von der Leyen said there was "swift work to be done to... restore the rule of law." EU leaders are also pressing Budapest to lift Orbán's veto on 90 billion euros in aid to Ukraine, though Magyar said he does not consider the veto relevant because Hungary opted out of the underlying loan last December.

Missing perspective

Both sources available for this report came from the BBC's center-aligned coverage. The Orbán camp's view of the transition timeline and the state media suspension was largely absent; Orbán posted on Facebook that "the work begins" and called on supporters to reorganize, but did not address Magyar's demands directly.

Orbán remains caretaker prime minister until Magyar is sworn in. An informal EU summit in Cyprus on April 23 could test whether Budapest's veto on Ukraine aid is lifted before the new government takes office.