Hungary parliament votes to remove president from office

"The great irony of the situation is that Fidesz have fallen foul of their own concept of power," Péter Rona - a former opposition presidential candidate - told the BBC.The 2011 constitution, written by Orbán's government, enshrined the principle that "the winner takes all". In office from 2010 until 2026, Fidesz reshaped the Hungarian state to its own will, and filled supposedly independent state positions with party loyalists - using its own two-thirds majority.The 141 Tisza deputies in parliament gave a standing ovation as the results of the vote were announced.The amendment also removes Constitutional Court judges who are over the age of 70, and forbids deputies who have served three terms in parliament from standing again - which applies to more than half the current Fidesz deputies."I quite agree with the removal of the president," András Baka, former head of the Supreme Court, told the BBC. Hungary was governed by the rule of law from 1989 to 2010, he argued. After that, Fidesz captured state institutions and created an authoritarian state. "And it is now very difficult to break up a sophisticated authoritarian regime... which was designed to survive even after electoral defeat," Baka said.