Zsuzsanna Szelényi


Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a Hungarian psychologist and politician, Member of the Parliament from 1990 to 1994 and from 2014 to 2018.

Life

Szelényi was born in Veszprém and raised in Balatonalmádi. She earned a degree in psychology and international studies. She participated in a postgraduate economic and international relations education at Tufts University, located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
Her husband is Ferenc Karvalits, a former Vice Governor of the Hungarian National Bank. They have three children.

Career

She joined Fidesz during the transition to democracy. She was elected Member of Parliament from her party's Veszprém County Regional List in 1990. She served as one of the senior recorders during the opening session. She was also delegated to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Szelényi held membership positions in several national parliamentary committees: Election and Mandate Inspection Committee, Education, Youth and Sports Committee, Social, Family and Health Committee and Committee on Foreign Affairs. She left the Fidesz in 1994, when the party changed its political position from liberal to conservative.
Szelényi served as Ministerial Commissioner in the Ministry of Education between 1994 and 1996, during the Socialist cabinet of Gyula Horn. She worked for the Council of Europe from 1996 to 2010, as Deputy Director of the European Youth Centre Budapest. She headed the Roma Education Fund in 2010. She worked as an International Development Consultant in the Balkans and North Africa since 2011. She participated in working of several non-profit organizations, including Active Citizenship Foundation, German Marshall Fund of the United States Marshall Memorial Fellowship and the Hungarian Europe Society.
She joined the Together party led by former PM Gordon Bajnai in March 2013, as a member of the Patriotism and Progress Association. She unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 parliamentary election as individual candidate for District II, Budapest against Mihály Varga. However Szelényi became MP on 10 June 2014, when she replaced Gordon Bajnai, who resigned from his parliamentary position on 26 May 2014. She was a member of the Committee on Budgets from 2014 to 2018.
On 23 June 2017, Szelényi announced that she resigned from her position in the party leadership and quit Together, after disagreeing the new direction and method of politics, installed by newly-elected president Péter Juhász. She criticized Juhász's guerrilla campaign methods and media PR campaigns and "ostentatious performances". She also said that she would retain her parliamentary mandate.