Just read the news about the riots this night.

Beyond the seriousness of these events, it sounds to me that there is a high tension in political (or social , or ... way of life ...don't know how to call it) Hungarian life and people's behavior.

I wonder how a simple document (despite its contents which I won't judge) can make hundreds (thousands ?) people get off and join in a protest at the same point in so few time. Sounds to me like it might have been prepared some times ago.

Of course I almost know nothing about Hungary and don't intend to be offending, just wondering. Are my questions worth explaining ?

I wrote to reply two reply in topic when I realized that I forgot the 'cassus belli':
On Sunday (saturday) a voicerecoring came to public. It was recorded in the closed fraction meeting of the socialist party. Gyurcsany Ferenc spoke to other socialist representatives (approx. 200 people).
He said: We were lying, we do nothing.
I will not translate all of it, but this was the piece which ignited the fire.
(hungarian version straight from the PM's blog http://blog.amoba.hu/blog-3.php?oid=Tc145d815a1773790c5ebf1a638f1e97.)

=back to the original============================



We just finished watching the interviews with the PM Ferenc Gyurcsany, an ex-PM Viktor Orban.



my imressions
Gyurcsany is stupid and undiplomatic. He is speaking from the heart, but I think it is not good in this situation. He keeps taling about that the resctrictions are neccasary but tell not too much about the future reward.

Orban still speaking about that the goverment has no legitimasation. That they have no right to rule. He speaks not just about moral right (we all know that all politician is a liar), but he speaks about that the goverment neither has legal rights to rule.


high tensions we have

Taxes were risen (personally I will have to pay +4% next year). But the commercial taxes were risen from 15% to 20% immediately.
Everybody has to pay for education, health, etc . Of course there will be social repays.
State dept is -11%. It is huge. Hungary is out of the euro requirements.
The great mantra of the opposite side: fee of natural gas. There will be no or just very small fee subsidy. Heating cost will rise with +30% this winter.

Yesterday attack on the state/public TV (MTV) HQ was a crime. It was said by the PM, the President of the republic, everybody.

The political resposibility is other question.
The currents opposite side (Fidesz) were (and I think still) pumping the tesions. We had very bad mooded elections this year.

well, last evening there was rioting away, but the police did better job than yesterday. As I see in the news, the rioters are mainly hooligans. The TV HQ was attacked by mostly football vandals and extreme right youngers.

I think everybody who has a car in the inner disctrict should secure his properties and put the car into guarded place, because insurance companies does not pay for damage caused by rioters.

Let's all hope for a new era in Hungarian politics.
Perhaps a new Minister for Money (Finance) would be an idea as this one seems to have got his sums wrong ?

Thanks for your comments.
I wish all of this was fixed very soon.
Actually I realize I've got nothing to say but banalities, so I better keep quiet except that we think of the people we know there.

Gyurcsany Ferenc is a crook, a liar, a thief and a communist despot. The problem goes way, way beyond the mere fact that he lied. By his own admission, his government did nothing for four years - in fact, they only made boneheaded decisions that have effectively bankrupted the country. And now he expects the Hungarian people to pay for those mistakes. He's insulted everyone - journalists, the people, the opposition, and blames everyone but himself. He tries to lay the blame for the riots, the protests, bomb threats, the economy, world opinion at the door of Fidesz (the opposition party).
It's highly likely that not only did he know that the tape would be leaked, but that he organised it. On the day that it came out, he wasn't in the country - he was in Moscow, meeting his friend Mr. Putin - who happens to be the ex-head of the Soviet KGB. I wonder what they were talking about?
He's pressurising the private TV channels to stop airing critical progammes. He's having everyone who attends a protest or demonstration photographed and identified. Arbitrary arrests are being made. He puts words into the mouth of the German Chancellor Angela Merkle, saying that she supports his stand - she never said that and is angry about it.
He won the last election with a slender majority, but only after a second round of voting. He promised lower taxes, more public spending, increases in pensions - all lies, and all election promises have now been reversed, If he'd informed the people of what he was actually going to do BEFORE the election, and not AFTER it, he would not now be PM, and therefore he has no right or legitimacy to govern, as he won the election by fraud.
The last budget he submitted to the EU was thrown back in his face as being "utterly unfeasible". Any economist who's looked at the Austerity package has said it will not work - Hungary will not have an economy fit to join the Euro before 2016 - not 2010.
He becomes more dictatorial by the day. He now wants to become leader of the socialist party as well as PM. He enacts ever more draconian 'security' measures every day. People fear the repurcussions if they speak out. Dissent is being repressed. He regards the elections being held on 1st October as "irrelevant" - in a democracy, no election is ever irrelevant, but then, there is no longer a functioning democracy in Hungary. The opposition parties cancel rallies and demonstrations as paid agitators will disrupt them, and they will be blamed for any unrest. He's threatened to revoke their legitimacy as political parties if they don't "shut up".
All of this, and more, is on record - it's not hearsay, or gossip, but a factual statement of what is happening in Hungary, today.
The increase in gas prices will hit people hard, especially as winter is coming. It will mainly affect the old and disadvanted members of the society, and you can expect many people to die this winter from hypothermia. The health service is in a state of collapse, and any large increase in admissions will cause a total meltdown. People - Hungarian people - are going to die this winter, entirely because of the negligence and mismanagement of Gyurcsany Ferenc and his communist friends. The most important thing to them is to remain in power, at any cost.
And you wonder why people are angry and why there are riots? The country belongs to the people and it has been stolen from them. A liar, a cheat and a thief sits in goverment. He knows if he can wait it out the people will get bored and frustrated and go home, and he can carry on with the lies, the fraud, the suppression of free speech and dissent, and nobody will be able to do anything about it.
My wife and I live in Hungary, but we are largely unaffected by the whole mess. We are both extremely angry that he's getting away with it, but so long as the Hungarian people don't take action - and I mean direct action - to remove this despot, there's precious little we can do, besides infoming whoever we can as to the situation here.

Hi everybody, been away for some time.

I won't be too long, in fact the only reason I decided to log in at such a late hour was to point out that according to public polls only a little less than half of the country is of the opinion that Gyurcsány should resign. Which is not all too surprising since a little less than half of the country voted for the present opposition that is not for MSZP or SZDSZ (the present coalitional government).

I'm a bit sorry to read aemann that you're presenting the other half of the country (the slightly bigger half mind you) as a crowd of communists, masochists and mentally retarded.

I would dearly like to point out all the mistakes in your "factual statements" but I fear I wouldn't get a chance to sleep then.

Regards though,
Alice

Er, no, I don't think can say that I regard half the country "as a crowd of communists, masochists and mentally retarded" - those are you words not mine.
Watch HirTV for a while and see if you can detect a difference to state TV. look at the media beyond Hungary and see how they report what's going on. You'll get a different picture, i.e. not the picture that GF wants you to have.

The European Peoples Party adopted today a resolution on the situation in Hungary and called on the Hungarian government to resign immediately. This is the complete text of the resolution:

“The EPP Political Bureau, gathering in Brussels on 19 September 2006:
- expresses its shock about the recently published statements of the Socialist Hungarian Prime Minister, in which he told the members of his parliamentary group that he and his government lied to the Hungarian citizens for years;

- stresses that the recently elected Hungarian government with these statements has lost all credibility and political legitimacy because it was elected on the basis of blatant and organized political lies;

- considers the political lies made by the Prime Minister and his government not only as an attack on the moral foundations of democratic institutions of Hungary but as an attack on fundamental European values causing enormous damage to the credibility of our democratic societies as a whole;

- calls on the Hungarian government to resign immediately;

- calls on the Hungarian Socialist Party and its liberal partner to withdraw their support from the Prime Minister and the government, paving the way for new elections in order to restore the trust of the Hungarian citizens in the democratic institutions;

- invites the Party of European Socialists to take a position on this serious matter”


This from a piece in the Sunday Telegraph:
Theresa Jilly is fuming. "This government is rotten, rotten. I call them the red mafia," she says. "These people, the socialists, they got so rich, you do not know how rich they are. They took things for themselves that were not theirs to take."
"I think the prime minister should resign," said Mrs Jilly, who was part of the group fired on by the security police outside the city's radio station in 1956. "When I see what's happening today, I say that these socialists have learnt nothing in 50 years." Many veterans of the failed revolution half a century ago feel the same way about the harsh austerity measures which Mr Gyurcsany introduced in place of the promised tax cuts.
"Typical Hungary," said Mr Jaksity, arguing that Hungarians were just no good at revolutions.
"We go out on to the streets and start to shout and get drunk and then we get tired and we go home."
He added: "The history of the nation tells you a lot about its future. In a month we will celebrate how we lost our last revolution. All our public holidays are about something we have lost. Even our national anthem is about our misfortunes."

Go to youtube.com and search for "Gyurcsany". You can watch all his past pronouncements, promises, threats, lies... in the TV debate with Victor Orban before the election, he accuses Orban of wanting to enact the very measures he's introducing now, and paints Orban as the enemy of the people and the country.
Don't you get it? He's bad. He's a crook, a liar, a cheat, a hypocrit, he brings shame on the country, it's people and democracy. You really should make more of an effort to make sure you're correctly informed, from reliable, independant sources, and not just from state propaganda, half-truths, ill-founded opinion and gossip. Surely it's worth losing a little sleep over? After all, it's just the future of the country, its people, its democracy and credibility that are at stake.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin

just watched a BBC comedy-series "Yes, minister" from the '80s. it is a perfect comedy about goverments. I recommend for everybody.

I think every high official (both in reign and ex) politican is a liar, a cheater, and so on. The "independent media" is rare, and there is no such thing as "reliable media". But there is such thing as "my favourite media".

Peoples like to hear good things, and sometimes they forgot to use their brain (both goverment side and opposition), they are not stupid, they just doesn't like to think. It is comfortable.