The main opposition Socialist party branded the first hundred days of the Hungarian government as a “frenzied race” while the radical nationalist Jobbik called for more radical measures on Friday, ahead of the prime minister’s formal assessment next week.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been invited to speak next Tuesday in front of the Batthyany Society of Professors, a conservative advisory group, and discuss the results of measures taken since his centre-right Fidesz party entered office on May 29 after a sweeping victory in the April general election.
Socialist party leader Attila Mesterhazy told a press conference on Friday that the first phase of the new government had shaken Hungary and democracy.
“The period was marked by broken promises, threats to democracy and lost opportunities,” he said.
Mesterhazy criticised the government for stalling radical tax cuts and measures to improve public safety, both a part of the Fidesz party’s campaign promises. He said the government had failed to stabilise the forint’s exchange rate to help borrowers in foreign currencies and instead has twice contributed to a plunge in the forint/euro rate during its first 100 days. He charged that the government has installed its party cadres into top administrative jobs and it wants to pass a media law, which curtails the freedom of the press.
Jobbik leader Gabor Vona on the other hand called the government’s measures too lenient in terms of public safety and economic questions. He blamed the government for its failure to reopen talks on national debt, review the country’s EU membership, eliminate tax evasion by multinational companies and nationalise pension funds. Vona added that the government had failed to address the most crucial social-economic issues, such as putting a stop to what he called “Gypsy crime” and preventing the bankruptcy of borrowers of foreign currency-based mortgages.
The green opposition Politics Can Be Different (LMP) party promised to give an assessment of the government’s 100 days this weekend.
Recent polls show Fidesz to have maintained an overwhelming lead over the main rival Socialists ahead of Hungary’s local elections on October 3.
The socialists would criticize anything and everything.
We, on the other hand, spend our days bemoaning the fact that nothing has changed here over the last twenty years in the murky world of Hungarian politics.
Gyurscany Ferenc and Bajnai Gordon along with bathing beauty queen, Hilda Lendvai, are the criminals that have ensured that there is no money in the purse to enable Hungary to progress along the lines it would wish.
Subterfuge, embezzlement, and clandestine activity remains the order of the day irrespective of the party in power.
I must confess though, that, the MSZP are unequaled in the sphere of combining corruption and inefficiency to the detriment of everyone except the elite few that stashed away public cash in exotic offshore bank accounts.
I know you have heard this all before but I just wanted to remind you how we got into the current mess.
Until the quality of politicians in this fair land improve we are destined to fail.
Farkas Laszlo has always maintained it will take a generation or two, before things improve.
He is correct in that assumption. The pity and shame of it all is that golden chances and opportunities have been squandered in recent
years and it looks as though that trend will continue.
@Doubtfire:
So until 2002 when MSZP came to power everything was moving in the right direction under Orbán’s leadership – strange …
Please tell me, WHY did Hungarian voters vote for MSZP in 2002 to get rid of Orbán – and then vote for Orbán again in 2010 ?
I’m a bit confused, not only regarding the wisdom/intelligence/memory of the Hungarian voters …
@ Wolfi
Re: “Please tell me, WHY did Hungarian voters vote for MSZP in 2002 to get rid of Orbán – and then vote for Orbán again in 2010 ?”
I asked Doubtfire the same question – or maybe I addressed it to “Alabama” – I think they are the same person.
Personally, I don’t understand why the Hungarians are beating themselves up for voting for Gyurcsany. They voted for him in good faith and had no way of knowing they were voting for criminals who will bankrupt the country.
Look at the Enron scandal – the outcome was not the investors’ fault.
Moreover, “along with bathing beauty queen, Hilda Lendvai,(sic) ” – very MCP remark. I don’t know if Ildiko L. looks good or if she is 300 lbs but rather irrelevant considering that no one ever comments on how Gyurcsany or Bajnai looked in a bathing suit – just exactly how does it correlate to the crimes she allegedly committed?
@olga:
I think we have quite a few mcps here on this site …
For those not in the know:
” A male chauvinist pig was a term used in the 1960s among feminists for men, usually with some power (such as an employer or professor), who believed that men were superior and expressed that opinion freely in word and action.”