From MEP to president

Orbán’s ally in line for top job.

János Áder, a conservative MEP, is all but certain to become Hungary’s president on 2 May. He was nominated on Monday (16 April) by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – and since Orbán’s Fidesz party commands a two-thirds majority in parliament, elevation seems assured.

Áder will replace Pál Schmitt, who stepped down on 2 April after a commission concluded that he had plagiarised large tracts of his doctoral thesis.

In plumping for Áder, Orbán has opted for one of his closest allies. Áder has been a member of Fidesz since its earliest days, joining the party in 1988, and was its vice-president in 1999-2003. He entered the Hungarian parliament in 1990, and over the next 19 years served as speaker, during Orbán’s government term in 1998-2002, and as leader of Fidesz’s parliamentary caucus, when the party was in opposition, in 2002-06.

Since entering the European Parliament in 2009, Áder has remained very loyal, voting with Fidesz 97.6% of the time. One of the most diligent attendees of plenaries, Áder has otherwise been only a moderately active MEP.

He has, though, been very active in reforming Hungary’s electoral and judicial systems – both of which have proven controversial. A requirement for judges to retire at 62 was one of the things that prompted the European Commission to launch infringement proceedings.

Such a low threshold would, one would suppose, have given Áder pause for thought. It would have barred his late father-in-law, Géza Herczegh, from serving as vice-president of the constitutional court. Does that explain why constitutional-court judges are exempted from the rule?