Hungary's prime minister on Sunday admitted he told a Socialist Party meeting in May his government had lied about its record to win April's election, triggering a protest demanding that he resign.
Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's comments were made at a closed party meeting and posted on Sunday on Hungarian radio's Web site (www.radio.hu) and then in full on Gyurcsany's own Web site (www.amoeba.hu).
"We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening," he told the meeting in a 25-minute speech peppered with obscenities.
About 3,000 protesters shouting "resign, resign" had gathered outside parliament by midnight after the prime minister's comments were made public.
Gyurcsany told the party meeting that the government would have no choice but to reform in its second term after what he said were lies that had characterized 18 months of his premiership and the four-year Socialist rule from 2002.
"There is not much choice. There is not, because we screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have," Gyurcsany said in the recording. "Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true. ... You cannot give me a significant government measure of which we could be proud [in four years] beyond that we have held on to power," he said.
The government campaigned promising tax cuts, but has since imposed US$4.6 billion in tax rises and spending cuts, and said the budget deficit this year would be 10.1 percent of gross domestic product, almost double what it promised in the election.
The tape was made public and a transcript later posted on the prime minister's Web site two weeks before local elections on Oct. 1, which the opposition Fidesz party is seeking to turn into a referendum on the legitimacy of the government.
Fidesz said it had not organized the protest and would comment on Monday, although its leader Viktor Orban said this week he would not be surprised if there was civil disobedience.
A snap poll on TV2 television station on Sunday showed 72 percent of the 65,000 people who had sent SMS messages believed he should resign, but the prime minister refused to quit.
"I will not resign," Gyurcsany told ATV television station.
Political analysts said they did not believe he would resign or that the tax rises and benefit cuts would be reversed, but they said Gyurcsany's credibility had been badly damaged.
They said that Gyurcsany, who wants to become Socialist Party president, may fail to win backing to take the presidency and that the opposition would win the local elections and be able to renew its challenge after two demoralizing defeats.
"Fidesz has received a great chance to win the local elections," said Zoltan Kiszelly a political analyst.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing