For "Vreme" from Budapest
When I saw three members of the Gendarmerie of the MUP of the Republika Srpska in the ski room of the "Termag" hotel in Jahorina three weeks ago, it was clear to me that there was a "protected person" nearby. While I was taking off my bulletproof vests, I heard a young woman paying for rented skis: "For me and Madam President!" she said in English.
I was thinking which country has a president who is on such good terms with Dodik that she would ski on Jahorina. The answer came a few minutes later when I saw Katalin Novak, the president of Hungary and an avid skier who was visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina on the occasion of the assumption of command of the EUFOR Althea forces by her country's armed forces and General Laszlo Štic.
Screenshot_20240216-213626_InstagramKatalin Novak skiing on Jahorina / Photo: Screenshot/Instagram
Novak is a popular politician in the ruling Fidesz party and one of the few women in the country's male-dominated political life. She is a key ally of the prime minister Viktor Orban, and she previously held the position of Minister for the Family. She was elected the first female president of Hungary in 2022.
While on that Wednesday, January 30, in the evening shift under the floodlights, she was going down the Poljice track, which she later duly announced on her Instagram profile, Katalin Novak had no idea that it would be her last descent as head of the Hungarian state. Ten days later, she resigned during a live televised address over her decision to pardon a prisoner convicted of covering up child abuse.
Scandal and resignations
The scandal that led to her resignation flared up when the names of 25 pardoned convicts were published in the media in April last year, during Pope Francis' visit to Hungary. The list of convicts also included the name of the deputy director of a children's home near Budapest, who was sentenced to three years in prison for forcing children to withdraw accusations of abuse against the director of the home. The director himself was sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing children in a state institution. Hungarian opposition parties and protesters demanded her resignation, but Katalin Novak's decision to actually do so was sudden and unexpected.
During a televised address, Novak said she approved the pardon because she believed the convicted man "did not exploit the vulnerability of the children he was supposed to care for." She apologized to victims who "may have felt like I wasn't on their side."
Hungary President ResignsI was wrong: Former President of Hungary Katalin Novak / Photo: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
"I was wrong, because the pardon and the lack of explanation contributed to the suspicion of zero tolerance towards pedophilia," Novak said.
Apart from her, Judit Varga, another important person of the Hungarian ruling center-right party, who was the Minister of Justice at the time, was also blamed for the controversial pardon. He was expected to lead the list of Fidesz candidates for the European Parliament in this summer's elections. In a post on her Facebook page, she stated that she would take political responsibility for granting the pardon and resigned from her position as a Member of Parliament and list holder for the European Parliament.
The most massive protest so far
The case of pardoning a man involved in child abuse has caused an unprecedented political scandal for the nationalist government that has long ruled Hungary. The Fidesz party itself, which has placed traditional family values at the foundation of its social policy, was especially embarrassed.
Even after the resignations, the crisis in Hungary continued. Last night, probably the largest opposition rally since Viktor Orbán came back to power in 2010, was held on the famous Heroes' Square.
We entered the Podium railway in front of the famous "Žerbo" pastry shop in the center of Budapest on Verešsmarty ter. The next station on this line, otherwise the oldest in continental Europe (opened in 1896 on the occasion of the Millennium festivities) was Deak ter. When a crowd of people rushed into our carriage, so many of them that half of them remained on the platform, it was clear that they were all going to Heroes' Square.
We exit the subway and to our right is the building of the Embassy of Serbia. The editor-in-chief of the "Magyar Szo" daily, Marta Varju, told me recently that, while she was working at the embassy, she personally advocated for a plaque to be placed on its facade testifying to the tumultuous events of Hungarian Revolution of 1956 which took place in front of and inside those walls.
It was the time of the Hungarian uprising against the communist regime when the Soviets invaded Budapest with tanks. The tanks were mostly aimed at the Yugoslav embassy because the insurgent government and Prime Minister Imre Nagy sought refuge there. The insurgents soon surrendered to the new government of Janos Kadar with guarantees that nothing would happen to them, and Imre Nađ stayed longer in the embassy because he did not want to surrender until he received guarantees. At that time, Khrushchev, Tito and Kadar were negotiating to allow Nadja a safe exit from Hungary. And since guarantees were obtained, he agreed to come out on November 22. A bus was waiting for him outside to take him to Romania, where he was imprisoned for about a year. After a rigged trial, he was executed in June 1958.
We've had enough!
There are already thousands of people on Heroes' Square. Music can be heard from the stage because the organizers of the event were popular influencers who invited people to protest against Viktor Orbán's regime, whose members are involved in the pedophile scandal. Popular singer Azahriah is among the nine influencers, the official organizers of the protest.
As the media reported, "several tens of thousands of demonstrators" gathered on Heroes' Square and in the surrounding streets on Friday, making the rally the largest opposition protest since Orban's return to power in 2010.
Hungary ProtestProtest in Budapest: We've had enough! / Photo: AP Photo/Denes Erdos
"We've had enough! We need changes because this government is full of lies and hypocrisy!" Jozef Molnar (64), one of the demonstrators who were on the streets of Budapest in 1989 when the communist regime was overthrown, told the Guardian.
From the subway station through all the side streets, the presence of security guards in yellow vests deployed by the protest organizers was very noticeable. On their Facebook profile, the influencers who called for the demonstration asked the citizens a question: "Think about it, how many other similar cases are there that we don't know about because they have been covered up?"
The "green" mayor of Budapest was also at the protest Gergelj Karačonj who returned a few days ago from Belgrade where he was an official guest of the opposition Green-Left coalition.
