early Sunday, September 24, and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany in the largest anti-government demonstration so far.
The massive protest, which began late Saturday, September 23, in front of the parliament building in Budapest came nearly a week after a tape recording was leaked in which the prime minister admits he lied about the economy.
Angry protestors, many waving Hungarian flags, shouted slogans against Prime Minister Gyurcsany, who they say betrayed their country by lying to the voters.
In a speech recorded at a closed party meeting that was leaked to the news media, Gyurcsany can be heard telling colleagues that he and his Socialist-led government “lied morning, evening and night” about the economy.
BUDGET DEFICIT
Hungary’s budget deficit is the highest within the European Union and millions of Hungarians are expected to feel the impact of unprecedented austerity measure.
Saturday’s protests took place amid a huge police presence. Riot police blockaded the parliament building in an attempt to prevent the protest from escalating into violent street riots like the ones that took place earlier in the week in which more than 250 people were injured and hundreds were arrested.
Some protestors compared the demonstration with recent revolutions in Eastern Europe.
Organizers invited Laszlo Tokes, an ethnic Hungarian Reformed bishop from neighboring Romania, who played a key role in the 1989 revolution which overthrow Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
He told the crowd that Prime Minister Gyurcsany had "no moral Foundation" for condemning rioters.
"Who is really to blame: the person who sets cars on fire, or the one who destroys an entire country,?" the bishop wondered.
SELF-RESPECT RESTORED?
Also addressing the rally was Imre Pozsgay, a former Minister of State in the old Communist government who played a role in the transformation to democracy in 1989.
He said, "The majority of Hungarians have enough of lies." Speaking of the Socialist-led government, he said, "They wanted to take away our self-respect, so let’s restore it. That’s why we are here."
Pal Schmitt, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s center-right opposition party, Fidesz, told demonstrators that the prime minister has caused a moral crisis in his country.
The upcoming municipal elections on October 1 "will be a referendum on the government’s performance," he stressed. Pal said the ballot "will be an opportunity for the left and right wing to in his words “declare their belief in justice sincerity, peace, quiet and Hungary’s development."
OPINION POLLS
Yet independent public opinion polls show that a slight majority of Hungarians do not want Prime Minister Gyurcsany to resign.
Gyurcsany himself has told reporters he made his remarks about lying to provoke a discussion and to encourage Hungary’s political establishment to stop what his calls years of “political deception.”
And, in a symbolic gesture that his own Communists-turned-Socialists are changing, Gyurcsany announced he wants to close down the hated Communist-era headquarters his party still occupies.
The building was the scene of recent rioting as well as fighting during Hungary’s 1956 Revolution, which was crushed by Soviet soldiers. (With BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest and BosNewsLife Research. Part of this BosNewsLife story also airs in Voice Of America (VOA) netwotk).
