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Status: 03/10/2022 12:39 p.m
She is conservative, popular, highly qualified and strictly on Orban’s line: Katalin Novak is to become Hungary’s new president today – at the age of 44. How her nomination came about.
Parliament President Laszlo Köver was actually set to be president: 62 years old, mustache, co-founder of the Fidesz party – a loud-mouthed Hungarian nationalist, veteran of the “Orban system”. But then Prime Minister Viktor Orban had an idea.
The strongman in Budapest nominated 44-year-old Katalin Novak for the highest office in the state. One who no longer even belongs to the “Orban Generation” and a woman – sensational for a Hungary that is almost at the bottom in Europe when it comes to the number of women in top political offices. It’s an honor for her, says Novak, accepts the offer, thanks and smiles that she’s “only” the nominee.
The cheerful, smiling face of Fidesz
The election campaign may have brought Orban to this step, which he is taking against an opposition that has been united for the first time. As the first female president, she will be there for the whole nation, promises the now deputy leader of the Orban party. Your party membership will suspend you.
Novak is highly qualified, speaks French, English, Spanish and German. She learned it in Frankfurt and in the Taunus while her husband worked for a year and a half at the European Central Bank (ECB). Novak studied in Hungary and Paris and is a knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Also a marathon runner, mother of three, who likes to bake and, as she says, strictly follows grandma’s recipe book. She is the happy, smiling face of the ruling Fidesz party. And: It is popular in Hungary.
Clearly against same-sex partnerships
As Minister for Family Affairs, she is the woman with the always good news who distributes money, for example for a larger family car for large families. As a close confidante of Orban, she stands unreservedly behind the arch-conservative image of women and families, which Orban recently had anchored in the Hungarian constitution with a two-thirds majority during his twelve-year reign.
What Novak vehemently defends: “A few years ago we didn’t think we had to write into the Basic Law that marriage is a partnership between a man and a woman – or that the mother is a woman and the father is a man,” says Novak and positions itself clearly against same-sex partnerships. She also says women shouldn’t feel like they have to constantly compete with men.
The opposition is fuming, accusing her of wearing “Viktor Orban earrings” and humiliating Hungarian women. However, the candidate who was lately added by the opposition, Peter Rona, 79, banker, economic expert, formerly adviser to the socialist prime minister before Orban, is no competition for the candidate Novak.
choice is considered safe
Novak’s election is considered certain, Orban’s Fidesz party has the necessary two-thirds majority in parliament – still: In three weeks the parliament will also be re-elected. Orban’s majority insisted on holding the presidential election beforehand, not deviating from the regular election time.
That is the luck of the deadline and the skill of the campaigner Orban – and an affront to the opposition. If Novak is elected with a two-thirds majority, then Orban’s confidant will sit at the top of Hungary for five years; albeit with more protocol powers.