Hungary's opposition Fidesz party staged its first major street demonstration since losing power in April to protest the Tisza government's planned constitutional amendment that would remove President Tamas Sulyok from office, Index.hu writes. Former Prime Minister Viktor Orban livestreamed the event on social media but was not present at the rally himself.

Several thousand supporters gathered in the picturesque Castle District at the Sandor Palace, the president's office.

The rally under the slogan "Stop Autocracy", marked a symbolic reversal for a party that spent 16 years in government and is now attempting to reinvent itself as a defender of constitutional order. The demonstration came days before parliament is scheduled to vote on the government's 17th constitutional amendment, one of the most controversial elements of Prime Minister Peter Magyar's rapid institutional overhaul.

The proposed amendment would immediately terminate Sulyok's presidency, introduce a 12-year limit on parliamentary mandates, reform the Constitutional Court and judiciary, and create new mechanisms to investigate alleged abuses during the Orban era.

The government argues that the package is necessary to dismantle political structures inherited from the previous administration and prevent loyalists appointed by Fidesz from obstructing reforms. Critics, however, say removing the sitting president through a constitutional amendment rather than impeachment stretches constitutional norms and sets a troubling precedent.

For Fidesz, the issue has become the centrepiece of a broader campaign portraying the new administration as rapidly concentrating power and suppressing opposition voices. 

During the days leading up to the demonstration, virtually the entire Fidesz leadership and its talking heads released videos accusing the government of building an "autocracy" and dismantling the rule of law.

Former president Janos Ader, the rally's keynote speaker, framed the constitutional amendment as an attack on Hungary's legal order rather than a dispute over one individual. He argued that Sulyok could only be removed through impeachment, and only if he had committed a constitutional offence, conditions that, he said, clearly did not exist.  

Ader warned that bypassing those procedures would undermine constitutional safeguards and damage the presidency as an institution. He also criticised other elements of the amendment, including parliamentary term limits and proposed changes affecting senior constitutional judges, describing the package as a broader attempt to reshape the institutional balance of power.

Other speakers echoed similar themes. Bertalan Havasi, Orban’s former communications director, urged supporters to defend Hungary's constitutional order and called on Sulyok not to resign under political pressure. Several speakers argued that the amendment represented the beginning of an authoritarian system under the new government.

Claims that the Tisza government was intimidating its critics gained traction after activist-influencer Istvan Szakacs was briefly detained by police earlier this week over an alleged terror threat. In a Facebook post, he wrote that if Viktor Orban was taken into custody (in connection with ordering the illegal raid on the Ukrainian gold convoy), half a million Hungarians would take to the streets and free him.

Szakacs received a huge ovation from the crowd as he appeared briefly on stage but did not give a speech.

The event resembled a traditional Fidesz rally, with supporters waving Hungarian flags. Speeches were repeatedly interrupted by chants of "Viktor, Viktor," "Dirty Tisza," and "Traitors." Nearby, a small group of counter-protesters held satirical signs and played recordings of Viktor Orban's controversial 2025 speech in which he compared government critics to "bugs." Police kept the two groups separated, and no major incidents were reported.

The demonstration also illustrated the challenges facing Fidesz in opposition, as the party could reach only a couple of thousand people despite the strong mobilisation, enough to fill the relatively small space. The demonstration also underscored the demographic challenge, with most participants appearing to be middle-aged or elderly. According to Népszava's on-the-ground reporting, many young people at the venue identified themselves as counter-protesters or simply curious observers.

The event also suffered from organisational shortcomings, such as poor sound, more commonly associated with Hungary's former opposition movements

Perhaps the most striking feature of the afternoon, according to local media,was the absence of Viktor Orban himself. Although the former prime minister spent days urging supporters to attend through social media and the event was livestreamed on his Facebook page, he did not appear.

Instead, he thanked participants afterwards in an online message praising Ader and expressing support for Sulyok. Orban, the only candidate for the post, was re-elected as president of the party at the June congress for one year with a massive majority.

Analysts see the former prime minister’s absence as highlighting one of the dilemmas confronting Fidesz after its election defeat. As the architect of Hungary's illiberal political system, he remains the party's most effective campaigner but is also the figure most vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy when warning about democratic backsliding, Political Capital writes.

Claims that Fidesz stands to defend constitutional values lack credibility given the party’s track record of centralising power, the think tank added. While in power, Fidesz rewrote the constitution without opposition support and filled independent institutions with loyalists.

Fidesz succeeded in mobilising several thousand supporters on a weekday evening during the summer holiday period, but it failed to create the impression of a broad popular movement against the government's constitutional plans, political analyst Szabolcs Dull writes.

The absence of Orban further reduced the political impact, leaving former president Ader to carry much of the event's political weight, he noted.

The demonstration signals that Fidesz intends to shift at least part of its opposition strategy from parliament onto the streets. Whether it can successfully transform itself into a protest movement after dominating Hungarian politics for more than a decade remains one of the key questions, according to Dull. 

Havasi later told Telex.hu that the reason why Orban did not attend the rally was that he did not want his presence to divert attention from the issue. He denied speculation that the former prime minister was abroad. Some speculation circulating in the media said that Orban was in the US for the World Cup.

Parliament is expected to vote on the constitutional amendment during an extraordinary sitting next week.