Orbán steps down from Hungarian parliament after landslide defeat

The outgoing prime minister will not take up his seat after leading his party back into opposition. Orbán steps down from Hungarian parliament after landslide defeat Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban rubs his forehead as he speaks at a campaign rally. Hungary's outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said he will not take up his seat in parliament after his party was defeated in a landslide that ended his 16-year rule. "I am now needed not in parliament, but in the reorganisation of the patriotic movement," he said in a video statement released on social media on Saturday evening. Despite his nationalist party Fidesz going from 135 seats to 52 in the 12 April vote, Orbán was re-elected as an MP on its proportional representation list. Tisza, led by former Fidesz insider Péter Magyar, won more than a two-thirds majority in the 199-seat parliament, paving the way for a reset of both Hungary's domestic policies and its global relationships. Following a meeting of Fidesz officials, Orbán, 62, said the party's parliamentary bloc would be led from Monday by Gergely Gulyás, who until now has served as the minister overseeing the prime minister's office. "The mandate I obtained as the lead candidate of the Fidesz-KDNP list is, in fact, a parliamentary mandate of Fidesz. For this reason, I have decided to return it," Orbán said. About half of Hungary's parliamentary seats are divided among political parties according to their national vote share, while the other half represent individual constituencies. Orbán has held a seat through one electoral format or the other since 1990, and has led Fidesz throughout that period. He has served as Hungary's prime minister since 2010, becoming the predominant figure in Hungarian politics. However, voters abandoned him in their droves amid brewing public unhappiness over allegations of corruption and graft while living standards slipped. Hungary's incoming PM has promised to reverse Orbán-era changes to education and health, tackle corruption, restore the independence of the judiciary and kill off the widely loathed system of patronage known as NER that helped enrich party loyalists and squander state resources. While Orbán aligned himself with US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin, "Russians go home" was an oft-heard chant of Tisza supporters during the campaign. Instead of being a stumbling block for the EU and Ukraine, Magyar has pledged to seek more cordial ties with Brussels and Kyiv. The Tisza leader has urged a swift handover of power, and Hungary's new parliament is due to hold its first session on 9 May. Orbán's fate as Fidesz leader, meanwhile, will be decided at a party conference in June, he said as he vowed to continue shaping the nationalist movement. A young woman with long plaited hair holds a Hungary flag at celebrations opposite the national parliament at the River Danube. Katya Adler: Jubilation in Budapest will be felt in Europe but leaves Moscow cold Magya speaking at a lectern with colourful lights behind him, that are red, white and green. Orbán era swept away by Péter Magyar's Hungary election landslide Péter Magyar stands beside President Tamás Sulyok. The two men wear suits and have their hands crossed in front of them. Magyar calls for fast handover of power in talks with Hungary's president The BBC's Jessica Parker visits Pripyat, which was abandoned in 1986 after an explosion at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The city of Dnipro was hardest hit, with officials saying four died in a strike on a residential building. Kosovo's court sentences two men to life imprisonment and another to a 30-year term for the 2023 attack. Ukraine says it has reopened the Druzhba pipeline, after months of stalemate over stalled oil supplies to neighbouring Hungary. The EU's top court finds that the reforms breached EU values on a number of levels and broke the founding values of the EU treaty. Péter Magyar and his Tisza party are wasting no time preparing for the transfer of power after their dramatic landslide victory. Péter Magyar, the man who ended Viktor Orbán's 16 years of continuous rule, wants the new parliament to convene in early May. Hungary's leader was a "great guy" who did a "very good job", the US vice-president said, but he was sure he could work with Péter Magyar.