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Admission strengthens Budapest's hand

Thomas Land

The Gyurcsany Government's admission it has been lying to the people brought shocked Hungarians out on to the streets but are the politicians playing a much longer game?

PHOTO: AFP

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany (left) and President Laszlo Solyom discuss the political crisis, in Budapest on Wednesday.

MANY ANALYSTS believe that an extraordinary secret speech delivered by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to fellow parliamentarians admitting that his government misled the voters in the last elections was leaked deliberately by the ruling Socialists to wrongfoot the Opposition.

The speech may have brought tens of thousands of outraged Hungarians out on to the streets in riots quelled only by police using water cannon, tear gas, and truncheons. But it has also, undoubtedly, strengthened Mr. Gyurcsany's position in charge of the Socialist-Liberal coalition government as it embarks on a series of unpopular austerity measures.

President Laszlo Solyom has rejected comparisons between the present violence and the widely-revered 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet rule because, he said, "unlike the rioters of today, the revolutionaries were not common criminals." The President, who under the Constitution does not have the power to revoke the mandate of a Prime Minister (even when he admits to lying to Parliament), has also severely reprimanded both the dominant political parties for causing and exploiting the riots.

Hoping for sympathy

But Mr. Gyurcsany says he is glad to have come clean on lying and hopes the shock his speech has caused may enlist sympathy at home and abroad for the inevitable belt-tightening in store for the country. The austerity measures introduced by his government since the April elections result from binding commitments for economic reforms made by Hungary as a price for joining the European Union back in 2004.

To fulfil that promise, the Gyurcsany Government has embarked on a tough economic reform programme, confronting overdue welfare cuts and tax and energy price increases which successive Hungarian governments had persistently avoided through hidden subsidies for political expediency.

In a confidential address littered with obscenities and delivered to fellow Socialist MPs at a holiday resort on Lake Balaton on May 26, Mr. Gyurcsany complained about the habitual lying in which he said the entire political elite had indulged. This, he implored, must now stop.

Mr. Gyurcsany also admitted that during the last election campaign while he personally delivered rousing speeches about a prosperous future, the Government was preparing plans for drastic cuts in the budget deficit.

Following the publication of the speech, both parties of the ruling coalition hastened to express full confidence in the Prime Minister, while the Hungarian public, disturbed by the riots, is showing impatience with Fidesz, the Opposition party, because of its association with the rioters.

All this is good news for the Socialists ahead of the coming municipal elections. The Hungarian currency has taken a beating at the international money markets, but it is recovering. And there is a feeling among Western investors that Hungary may well remain a safe and stable home for their money, despite the current hiccup, particularly under a Gyurcsany government committed to its frugal economic policy.

Which is why many analysts believe that the leak of the address may have originated from the Socialists themselves. This and the structure of the speech itself.

There are signs within Mr. Gyurcsany's address suggesting that it had been composed for maximum impact. The obscenities and the repeated references to heavy drinking seem to be directing listeners into believing it is the alcohol talking and that the drink is behind the bout of surprising honesty of the orator.

But its solid structure and faultless composition betray careful planning by an accomplished politician delivering one of the most important speeches of his career.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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