Viktor Orban announces that he will no longer take over his mandate as a deputy, after 36 years in which he was a member of Parliament / Peter Magyar's reaction

Outgoing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on Saturday that he is stepping down from the Hungarian Parliament after his Fidesz party suffered a crushing electoral defeat that ended his 16 years in power, AFP reports.

In the April 12 legislative election, Viktor Orban lost to a newcomer to the Hungarian political scene, the pro-EU conservative Peter Magyar, whose party won a two-thirds majority in Parliament in a vote marked by a record turnout in the Central European country.

The 62-year-old nationalist leader, who has been a member of the Hungarian Parliament without interruption since the country's democratization in 1990, last week called for a “complete renewal” of his party.

“Since the mandate I obtained as the head of the list of the Fidesz-KDNP alliance is in reality a parliamentary mandate for Fidesz, I decided to return it. At this moment, I am not needed in the Parliament, but in the reorganization of the national camp,” says Viktor Orban in a video broadcast on Facebook after a meeting of the Fidesz executive committee.

He added that the party leadership recommended that he stay on to continue his work as Fidesz president and that he is “prepared for this task” if reconfirmed at the party's congress in June.

Peter Magyar, who won the election by promising “regime change”, accused Orbán of cowardice.

“The 'brave' street fighter remains incapable of one thing: to assume his responsibilities… With a mafia godfather (in charge), there can be no democratic opposition,” the future prime minister said in a Facebook reaction.

Hungary's National Assembly is set to hold its inaugural session on May 9, when the new members will be sworn in.

Peter Magyar's Tisza party won 141 seats, while Viktor Orban's Fidesz-KDNP got 52 and the far-right “Our Fatherland” party 6, in the 199-member National Assembly.