Hungary’s president resigns amid uproar over child sex abuse case pardon

Hungarian President Katalin Novak announced her resignation Saturday following outrage over a pardon granted to a man implicated in a child sexual abuse case.

The announcements followed growing pressure from opposition politicians and protests outside the presidential palace Friday evening.
“I am resigning my post,” said 46-year-old Novak, acknowledging that she had made a mistake.

“I apologise to those who I hurt and all the victims who may have had the impression that I did not support them,” the former minister for family policy added.

“I am, I was and I will remain in favour of protecting children and families.”

She apologized to victims and their families in her televised speech on Saturday, saying she had “made a mistake.”

Her apology was “to those whom I may have offended and to all the victims who might have felt that I did not stand up for them,” Novak said, adding that she had always “consistently advocated for the protection of children and families.”

Saturday’s address was her final one as president, less than two years after she took office.

Novak ,is a close ally of Hungary’s hardline nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán and was the former family minister. In 2022, she became the first woman to hold the largely ceremonial role of Hungarian president.

Novak, who visited Tanzania in July 2023 to strengthen the ties between the two countries, became the first Hungarian woman to hold the office of president in March 2022.