Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar has promised to amend the constitution to remove the president and other officials appointed under populist former Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Magyar on Monday called President Tamas Sulyok Orban's "puppet" and said he should resign, but the president has repeatedly rejected the prime minister's requests.
Magyar and his Tisza party won a landslide victory in April elections. With a two-thirds majority in parliament, they can make sweeping changes to the political system Orban built over 16 years.
Magyar had given Sulyok a deadline of last Sunday to resign or face removal by constitutional means.
While holding a mostly ceremonial role, Hungary's president is responsible for signing legislation into law and can send bills to the Constitutional Court for review, raising concerns among the new government's supporters that he could obstruct their plans.
Magyar held talks with Sulyok at the presidential palace on Monday morning. Later at a news conference, he said the president had refused to resign.
"I have told the President that if he maintains his stance and does not resign, I will inform the lawmakers of Tisza about our legislative proposals today and we will immediately start the necessary procedures," Magyar said.
He said the legislative process would take about a month and involve "removing all the puppets" who took part in "dismantling the rule of law and democracy."
"Hungary does not belong to Tamas Sulyok nor to Viktor Orban. It doesn't belong to a single party or political system," Magyar said.
Magyar accused Sulyok of failing to perform his duty on several issues, including not speaking out when Orban made dehumanizing statements about opponents or when the previous government passed a law banning an LGBTQ pride event.
"It is in Hungary's interest that this institution – the office of the president – regain the prestige that has been eroded by its silence and inaction," Magyar said.
On Friday, Sulyok's office released a statement saying Magyar's calls for resignation "adversely affect both the constitutional functioning and the authority of the institution of the President of the Republic."
The statement added that Sulyok had requested a legal assessment from the Venice Commission, a group of legal experts with Europe's top human rights body.
Source: www.aljazeera.com