In a separate appearance on Kossuth state radio, he declared “every Hungarian deserves a public service media that broadcasts the truth.”
As a result of the government’s dominant role in the media, many Hungarians — especially those in the country’s rural areas — only heard or saw coverage curated by the ruling Fidesz party. Magyar himself avoided speaking to state-controlled outlets ahead of the Hungarian election, which he won on Sunday.
“After a year and a half, I am back in the ‘public’ television studio,” Magyar wrote in a post on X. “We have just witnessed the last days of a propaganda machine.”
This week, the prime minister-elect argued the country’s state broadcasters should cease news operations until “conditions for objective, impartial reporting” can be ensured. He additionally proposed a committee of “all parliamentary parties and other leaders” be formed to oversee Hungary’s public media channels, guaranteeing the presence of opposition politicians on broadcasts that meet or exceed “BBC standards.”
Magyar’s landslide election win on Sunday gave his Tisza party the parliamentary supermajority needed to enact these reforms. He plans to change the constitution to similarly demolish key pillars of the former prime minister’s tight grip over judiciary and state companies.
To that end, he’s called for a large swath of top-level resignations, among them that of Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok. After visiting the president — who can veto legislation and send it back to parliament — on Wednesday, Magyar posted a photo of the two with an incendiary caption.