The liberal SZDSZ party’s executive gave the prime minister’s action programme a thumbs down at its two-day meeting in Racalmas, directly south of Budapest, on Saturday.
“SZDSZ believes that this programme is not aimed at the survival of the country but at the survival of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany,” said party chair Gabor Fodor.
The minority socialist MSZP government will not be able to get the votes needed for the bill, including a series of tax cuts, without liberal support. The prime minister has said he would resign if the bill failed.
“After 120 days in which the citizens of Hungary had no idea what kind of programme the government wanted to carry out, it is definitely an achievement that a programme has been made public,” Fodor added.
SZDSZ considers Gyurcsany’s package unfit for settling the problems faced by Hungary, Fodor said. He also criticized the programme as an overplay of the government’s role in the economy, which he called reminiscent of Janos Kadar’s one-time communist regime.
Otherwise, Gyurcsany’s tax reform plan, which is to regroup huge funds through convincing current tax evaders to pay up, is “totally unfounded”, Fodor said.
Moreover, the SZDSZ chair criticised the programme for its failures to focus on the environment, to refer to the struggle against discrimination and to propose ways to help Hungary’s Roma community.
Fodor sidestepped the question of whether his party would vote for the government’s budget bill for 2009, a major test of strength for the minority government. The bill has not yet been submitted to Parliament, he said.
MSZP parliamentary group leader Ildiko Lendvai issued a statement in response to Fodor’s charges. She challenged him to find additional funding for tax cuts by reducing governing and social spending, and to resolve other social issues such as Roma integration and sustainable environmentally conscious development, noting that by quitting the government coalition SZDSZ had abrogated responsibility for the issues it laid at the cabinet’s door.
Lendvai said MSZP had not expected all political and economic players to identify unconditionally with government policy. The goal was to initiate rational debate that would yield responsible proposals. This is what she would like to see SZDSZ contribute to, said the press briefing.
