Wednesday July 3 from his posts after discovering that his father worked for the once feared Communist secret service.
"I realized yesterday that my father, for 33 years, before the country shifted to democracy, had been working for the Communist secret services," said Zoltan Pokorni, of the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Party.
Pokorni stressed his father, imprisoned for anti-state activities by Communist authorities in 1952, was forced into being an agent after he was released from jail following the revolution against Soviet domination in 1956.
In return for writing off the remainder of his sentence, he was "forced to into writing reports about his friends, colleagues and contacts at the factory he worked for, which constructed power stations," said Pokorni.
VIOLENT ANGER
"I am currently engrossed by violent anger towards the secret service officials who forced him into this activity. One is unable to lead a party with such anger," he told reporters.
Pokorni, 40, became Fidesz president in May 2001 after he served as education minister in the centre right coalition government of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who lost the April elections.
However analysts said Pokorni’s resignation seemed intended to put pressure on Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy, who was forced to admit that he worked as a counter intelligence officer between 1977 and 1982, after newspaper revelations last month.
CHRISTIANS SUFFERED
Pokorni and other opposition leaders had urged Medgyessy to resign, because political dissidents as well as christians suffered under the Communist regime and its secret services.
Medgyessy denied he was spying on political opponents, saying his task was to make sure that "foreign spies" could not block Hungary’s secret entry into the International Montery Fund by 1982.
The liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), which nearly left the current governing coalition with the Socialists over the scandal, said it "does not understand" Pokorni’s resignation.
NO REASON
"He does not seem entirely sincere and there is no reason for it," said SZDSZ deputy Imre Mecs, who was nearly executed before receiving an amnesty for his role in the 1956 revolution against Soviet domination.
"Everyone should be responsible for their own deeds only and nobody should be made responsible for the deeds of their family members," Mecs added. His party, which includes many former persecuted dissidents, is leading calls to open all files of officials involved in the former secret service.
Prime Minister Medgyessy told reporters that it was time to look towards the future. "I would like it if instead of more family tragedies, there should be peace in Hungary at last," he said.
