February 18th, 2011

Top Socialist says former PM Gyurcsány should leave party rather than “ruining” MSZP

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Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyucsány (Hungarian Socialist Party; MSZP) should found his own liberal party instead of breaking up his party, said László Puch, one of the most influential Socialist politicians, in a recent interview with FigyelőNet.

Puch added Gyurcsány’s platform, the Democratic Coalition, is a party within the party.

The MSZP’s former treasurer thinks the former chairman’s version of the party would be incapable of making politics on the long run, because the only thing that would keep participants together would be being anti-Orbán.

Puch expects it will be decided at a session of the national assembly what type of party the majority of members want. Int hat case, Gyurcsány will have two options; he can either adapt or quit the party.

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  • Leto

    Gyurcsány has become a big burden for MSZP and he’s doing a great service for us by eroding them. I think he’ll cut out a nice chunk from MSZP in the end… If he’d still overtake MSZP then that’s fine, too. According to the latest polls, he’s still by far the most disliked politician and that’s the case for a loooong time. :D

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I5BGsK5ZAU Viking

    But he has his core followers, who are rather loyal to him and has been like that for many years
    He held a speech the other day that his followers seem to like
    It will be interesting if he will be the face of the ‘anti-Orban’ movement in Hungary
    Checking Hungarian State TV at the moment they cannot just stop speaking about Gyurcsany, so obviously he is very interesting
    Given the demand for “balanced” reporting some of this cover, must of course be pro-Gyurcsany…
    Maybe Gyurcsany will be the real litmus test for the New Media Law’s demand for “balanced” reporting?
    That would generate a lot of laughs

  • Leto

    A few fun highlights from Gyurcsány’s speech yesterday in an expensive five-star hotel, with five “left liberal celebrities” as stage props.
    He accused Orbán of “irresponsible tax policies” and “endebbting the country”. Let’s remember it was Gyurcsány who lowered VAT to 20% from 25% just before the 2006 elections and they restored it to 25% after winning the elections, a few month later. Let’s also remember that the public debt ratio rose by 27% percents during the MSZP-SZDSZ governments and a large part (cannot remember how much) of this was done by Gyurcsány.
    “Orbán first filled the glass of bitterness and now he’s offering it to us”, he lamented. :D
    “Orbán wants to destroy his political opponents”, said Gyurcsány. (“We have to crush the Right”, said Gyurcsány in February, 2004, as a Socialist minister in Medgyessy’s government)
    Gyurcsány learned from Mr. Botka (the only Socialist mayor of a city in Hungary) how bad the flat tax system is. Unfortunately Mr. Botka couldn’t comment because he’s siding with Mesterházy, Lendvai, Puch, etc. who also failed to turn up at this event, a pitiful afterthought of Mr. Orbán’s state-of-the-nation speeches.
    At least this time the decoration was almost right: loads of tricolors and some EU-flags. Based on this, one would have thought it’s Orbán who’d speak here.
    The best was the slogan on the Orbán-imitator’s Orbán-style standing desk: “New Republic”.
    Senator Palpatine, later Emperor, liked that phrase very much, too.

  • Leto

    @olga:
    Gábor Török may well be the highest esteemed political analyst in Hungary, actually both sides of the fence pay close attention to what he says.
    His blog is an excellent source for learning about Hungarian politics.
    This is his latest post on Gyurcsány’s Friday speech: http://torokgaborelemez.blog.hu/2011/02/18/329_kit_teremt_maganak
    While I recommend you should try to read the whole article, let me summarize it for you:
    According to Mr. Török, Gyurcsány is kept alive (politically) only by two political actors today: Orbán and MSZP itself.
    Firstly the half decade “duel” between Orbán and Gyurcsány may continue to be interesting and thrilling (for the public)
    Secondly MSZP doesn’t have any other politician who has the slightest potential to challenge Orbán. This leadership vacuum and their nostalgy for Gyurcsány’s past success (against Orbán) are the things which keep MSZP at bay in their relation to Gyurcsány.

  • http://www.centralbudapest.com Vándorló

    @Leto: Agree completely about Gábor Török. He
    manages to piss off both side to an equal degree and
    both accuse him of bias – always a healthy sign.
    It’s worth keeping up with his Facebook page too, as
    he often adds smaller observations, news and the
    occasional threatening letter excerpt there:
    http://www.facebook.com/torokgaborelemez

  • Leto

    @Vándorló:
    It’s nice to see there’s something we agree on at last.

  • Leto

    Oh, and thanks a lot! I didn’t know about his FB page and now I can see there’s some extra stuff there indeed.

  • olga

    @ Vandorlo and Leto
    How could anyone resist a blog that you both recommend? – I would have started reading Torok on that basis alone especially now that I am on my quest ” to learn to read Hungarian articles” ;
    Ez volt a hab a tortan (“icing on the cake”, just looked it up 5 minutes ago ) : “He manages to piss off both side to an equal degree and both accuse him of bias ‘
    He sounds like someone I could learn to love.
    Thanks

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