Hungary’s parliament elected András Baka, the former head of the Supreme Court, as President of the Republic on Tuesday. Baka said that before 2026, the Hungarian state had failed to meet one of the most fundamental requirements of a democratic rule-of-law system: the genuine separation of powers and a functioning system of checks and balances. Baka said Hungary had developed a system in which a single party had captured the state and its institutions, culminating in years of governance by decree that largely bypassed parliament.