Outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on Saturday that he is giving up his parliamentary seat after suffering a crushing defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary election, domestic media reported. Orbán said he will now be needed "not in parliament but in the reorganization” of his national-conservative bloc, Hungarian news outlet Telex reported. “The seat I won as Fidesz-KDNP leader is actually Fidesz’s parliamentary seat, so I decided to give it back. We need me now not in the parliament, but in the reorganization of the nationalist side,” he is quoted as saying in a video clip shared on social media. Orban has served in the Hungarian parliament since 1990 after being elected in the country’s first free elections. The 62-year-old is the country’s longest serving prime minister. However, he wants to remain head of the party if re-elected in June. Orbán’s 16-year term in power, which became a template for many hard-right rulers across the West, ended when the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar swept to victory in elections on April 12, promising to end corruption and to regain funds frozen by the EU over rule-of law concerns.
