Photo: Index.hu
The Hungarian National Assembly
(Parliament) has elected László Sólyom, the former chief justice of the
Constitutional Court, as the new President of the Republic of Hungary.
Mr. Sólyom, the candidate of the
opposition parties, received 185 votes against 182 for Speaker of the
Parliament Katalin Szili, nominated by the government-leading Socialist
Party. Mr. Sólyom was elected by a simple majority in the third round of
voting after two previous rounds failed to produce a two-thirds majority
consensus.
László Sólyom, who is not a member of
any party, took the oath of office immediately after the vote in a formal
ceremony in Parliament.
He will take office for a five-year term
on August 5, two days after the mandate of current President, Ferenc Mádl,
expires.
Mr. Sólyom was the first chief justice
of the Hungarian Constitutional Court between 1990 and 1998. He was also a
member of the "Opposition Roundtable," which in the late 1980s
took part in talks with the then-ruling Communist Party and helped set the
ground rules of the transition to democracy.
Mr. Sólyom, 63, was born in 1942, in
the southern Hungarian city of Pécs. He is married and has two children
and nine grandchildren.
