Far-right 'hijacking' Hungary protests

[kskiska]

Far-right radicals threatened to use violence to oust Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany last night, as Budapest witnessed the largest demonstration in a week of protests aimed at forcing out the socialist leader, who has admitted lying to the nation.

Tens of thousands of people massed outside parliament by the River Danube, as riot police with tear gas and water cannon took up positions around Budapest. Meanwhile, the city's mayor warned that nationalist football hooligans were intent on wreaking havoc.

(snip)

The conservative Fidesz opposition party withdrew its support for yesterday's rally after warning of violence, but far-right groups encouraged people from across Hungary to converge on Budapest to try to oust the defiant Gyurcsany.

'We are prepared to get rid of this government by radical means, like they did in 1956 - in a violent way, if they will not heed the word of peace,' said Kemal Gyorgy Ekrem, a notorious far-right activist who claimed to be a spokesman for the demonstrators. Most people have condemned the far right's attempts to invoke the memory of October 1956, when thousands of Hungarians died in an uprising against Soviet rule.

more…
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1879803,00.html

[MrPrax]

1. No Bridges Named after Gyurcsany

This is a universal problem; corrupt governments and their lying. The Hungarian PM was just more candid than most...

Couple of points for those that might have missed the details:

Hungary PM: we lied to win election

The prime minister of Hungary has confirmed the legitimacy of a leaked tape recording in which he says his government lied to win April's election and "lied in the morning; lied in the evening" during office.

The recording comes from a speech Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany gave to a closed party meeting shortly after his Socialist-Liberal coalition took office for a second term.

...

"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 quote any significant government measure we can be proud of, other than at the end we managed to bring the government back from the brink. Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?"

"We lied in the morning; we lied in the evening," he said.

Guardian

____

Also there has been a major financial scandal ('brokergate') going on for the past four years involving members of the government, cover-ups, money laundering involving Syrian businessmen, H&K brokerage house, chemical companies, russian banks, you name it. Those investigations and some of the players are running parallel to this current little drama.

Background stories to this:

The issue of the destroyed telephone transcripts: recent developments in the Brokergate Scandal
Fidesz - May, 2005 (gives a timeline of the scandal)

Row erupts over Brokergate tapes - May 3, 2005
Budapest Times

Suspect in K&H scandal arrested
Budapest Sun

Lover confesses!!!! (and an element of sleaze!)
Budapest Sun

The big problem that has Hungarians livid is the fact these 'socialists' ran in the last federal election on a platform of cutting already high taxes...within minutes of getting into office, they immediately raised taxes and fees by over 4 billion affecting everything from university tuition to tolls to everything. There have been anti-government demonstrations against this all summer -- the revelations of the tape simply pushed the protestors over the edge.

I wish them luck...this innovation in western democracy of saying anything to get elected and then after the swearing in ceremony, do exactly what the guy who lost was going to do, more or less kills the notion of a real democracy, unless there is some 'institutional' mechanism to 'fire' them.

Since there is no formal way of getting rid of them for doing things that would get anyone anywhere fired and perhaps sued, then people do retain that right to take back that 'vote' one way or another.

The revolt in 1956 is not even close -- there it was a question of neutrality and Soviet imperial aggressive...today it's a problem, all to common to all democracies.

Let's just hope that Hungary doesn't solve it's corruption problem the same way they do in Thailand.