Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday he will not take up his seat in parliament following his party’s landslide defeat in this month’s election, but intends to remain leader of Fidesz and oversee a process of “renewal".
Orban has served in Hungary’s legislature for 36 consecutive years. He has also served as Prime Minister for the past sixteen years.
“I’m not needed in parliament now but in the reorganisation of the nationalist side," said Orban, who held the No 1 slot on his Fidesz party’s candidate list, as quoted by Bloomberg.
He added that he would seek re-election as party leader at the party’s June congress.
Orban was defeated in the election two weeks ago by the leader of the Tisza party, Péter Magyar.
Orban has previously stepped back before returning to power. After his earlier one-term government was defeated in 2002, he relinquished the party leadership in order to rally his conservative base into a new alliance. He later returned to government eight years afterward at the head of that movement.