clashes between anti-government protestors and police forces since the collapse of Communism in 1989.
At least 150 people were injured, including over 100 policemen, when thousands of angry demonstrators attempted to storm the national television station in Budapest, early Tuesday, September 19, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany as he said in a leaked tape that his government lied to voters to be re-elected.
Scores of protesters smashed windows and hurled bottles and cobblestones at riot police, while others used flagstones to attack the television building in the center of the Hungarian capital.
Security forces fired tear gas to keep the demonstrators out of the facility, however hundreds managed to enter before being expelled several hours later. But by that time, part of the building had been set ablaze, and nearby cars were also set on fire.
SHOUTING SLOGANS
Earlier an estimated 10,000 people demonstrated in front of the parliament building. Some demonstrators shouted slogans from Hungary’s Revolution in 1956 when protests against Soviet domination and Communism was crushed by Soviet troops.
They recalled that Gyurcsany, had been a Communist youth leader before becoming a multi millionaire businessman, and eventually becoming the prime minister of this young EU nation.
As the unrest spread to other towns as well, Hungarian television aired a message from President Laszlo Solyom in which he said Gyurcsany had caused “a moral crisis in Hungary.”
He called the prime minister “personally responsible" for the situation and said Gyurcsany should apologize for what he termed "toying with democracy" and "knowingly" jeopardizing people’s faith in democracy.
CLOSED MEETING
Speaking at a closed meeting of his Hungarian Socialist Party in May, which was secretly recorded and aired by Hungarian Radio, Gyurcsany said no other European country made such a mess as Hungary had done under his government.
"Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what whatever we said was a lie," he said.
"We have not taken any significant government measure we can be proud of in the last four years. We did nothing but bringing back the government from the brink, Gyurcsany added." If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?"
HUNGARIAN ECONOMY
Before the election, the government had insisted Hungary’s economy was not as bad as it seemed and that a budget deficit in 2006 would be around four-point-seven percent of Gross Domestic Product.
But, after his re-election, Gyurcsany admitted that — even with dramatic spending cuts and more taxes — the gap would be more than twice as much this year. That is the highest budget deficit within the European Union and has raised doubts about Hungary’s prospects to adopt the Euro currency in the foreseeable future.
Hungary’s Reformed Church meanwhile said in a statement that the freedom of speech must not be the freedom of untrue speech.
VISION BASIS?
"This (latter) cannot serve as a basis for a vision and future prosperity for the community," said Bishop Gusztav Bolcskei and Rector Sandor Nagy in their statement released by Hungarian news agency MTI.
They said the Reformed Church finds it "worrying" if decision makers no longer trust the wisdom of their voters and try to "pass decisions instead of them rather than on their behalf."
The Calvinist leaders also stressed the importance of "personal responsibility, without which all democratic values become questionable."
Although the Socialist Party has said it still supports the prime minister, the political row could not have come me at a worse time, for the government. There are municipal elections on October first and the government hopes for public support to tackle the budget deficit with unprecedented social and economic reforms. Prime Minister Gyurcsany has proposed that the five parliamentary parties meet on Tuesday to debate the situation.
