3 min readUpdated: Jul 21, 2026 12:57 PM IST
Chess legend Judit Polgar has declined an offer to become the next Hungarian President, a day after the country’s Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, said that he would meet her to ask if she was willing to accept the position.
Magyar said that he wanted Polgar to stay in the role until the adoption of the new Hungarian Constitution.
After a meeting on Monday, Polgar took to social media to announce that she had declined Magyar’s offer, a nomination that was said to have been put forth by “respected figures in Hungarian public life”.
“I do not feel I have the strength to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, and so I am unable to accept the invitation,” Polgar wrote on social media.
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“I will do everything in my power to support a new, independent, and respected President of the Republic in achieving these goals,” she further added to her post.
Should Polgar, 50, have accepted the offer, she would have enjoyed the unanimous backing of Magyar’s Tisza party, which commands a two-thirds majority in parliament, but also she would have broken another ceiling by becoming probably the only female chess player to hold the top office in her country.
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“I am sorry, but I respectfully accept her decision. Thank you to her for taking the request seriously! Thank you for her openness, her straightforward speech, and the dignity with which she handled this situation,” Magyar said on social media in response to Polgar’s announcement.
Polgar is unarguably the greatest female player in chess history. She remains the only woman to have reached the chess world’s overall top 10. She is known for breaking Bobby Fischer’s record as the youngest grandmaster in chess history. Polgar had also defeated other chess legends like 11 world champions, including Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, over the board. Polgar is also a five-time Chess Olympiad champion, and a recipient of the Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen.
In an interview with The Indian Express in March this year,Polgar had said that the ‘next Judit Polgar’ is likely to come from India.
Her sisters Susan and Sofia were also elite chess players who were shaped by a radical experiment by their father Laszlo, who believed that geniuses can be moulded rather than them being born.
