Only early elections can give Hungary a chance to have a stable government with broad authorisation, President Laszlo Solyom said in an interview with public television on Wednesday.
Only such a government would have the background sufficient for creating a long-term programme to carry the country through the crisis, Solyom said.
The constructive no-confidence motion is constitutional, but it is not more than replacing the prime minister; the new cabinet’s programme does not need to be presented or debated in parliament, the president said.
The present attempt is aimed at temporary and short-term crisis management, Solyom said, adding that “this is the least democratic” of all possible solutions.
At an early election the parties would have to fight for public support, and would only succeed if they came up with feasible programmes in the campaign, he said.
The prime minister announced his resignation because his credibility was badly hurt. His announcement opened a way to changes, but the changes that are in the process are not satisfactory, Solyom said.
The conservative Democratic Forum party, which hold nine parliamentary seats, issued a statement noting that a constructive vote of no confidence was an option allowed by the constitution. Whereas early elections would be desirable, a parliamentary majority in support of such a motion was untenable, it said.
In response to the president’s comments, Ildiko Lendvai, parliamentary leader of the minority government Socialist Party, said that it was incumbent on the president to refrain from making direct political statements.
The small liberal Free Democrats, too, said that it was “not fortunate” for the president to make his political sympathies clear in public statements. The party’s deputy parliamentary leader Peter Gusztos said that a chance should be given to the outgoing prime minister’s scenario in which the country might have a new government in two weeks. Should that attempt fail, the Free Democrats will be ready to support early elections, Gusztos added.
Peter Kiss, head of the Prime Minister’s Office, also voiced disagreement with the president, and said that early elections would involve considerable and unacceptable delay to implementing crisis-management measures.
