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Veterans of 1956 revolt call for Hungary's leader to quit Power struggle follows demonstrations after prime minister admitted lying over tax cuts September 24 2006, The Sunday Telegraph
BY GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN in Budapest 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.'' Sitting in the sunshine at a pavement café in the centre of Budapest, where anti-government demonstrators fought running battles with police the night before, the 74-year-old veteran of Hungary's 1956 revolution rails against the government of Ferenc Gyurcsany, the former communist who made millions in property deals after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Not only is the rising cost of food and power eating into her pension, not only are neighbours forced to beg her for a few forints to buy some bread, but now the prime minister has had the gall to admit he lied when promising tax cuts before going on to victory in April's elections. "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. Their anger was shared by the rioters who poured on to the streets last Monday after a recording was leaked of the 44-year-old socialist leader admitting to party members that he had lied about the poor state of the economy. But last night, the violence looked to be dwindling and, for many in the city, life has gone on as normal. Bars are busy, restaurant tables fully booked, tourists undeterred. The biggest danger to Mr Gyurcsany may lie within his own party. What started as an explosion of popular anger has quickly deteriorated into accusations of political skulduggery involving a power struggle between two of the country's leading politicians, allegations of faked bomb plots and football hooligans for hire. Some have speculated that the prime minister leaked the tape himself to force a public debate on the reforms, but even for a man who counts Peter Mandelson, the former Labour spin doctor, among his friends, that appears too high-risk a strategy. Political commentators agree that he was instead a victim of counterspin as party rivals leaked the tape in an attempt to bring him down. "He is a control freak and wants to be prime minister and president of the party. The tape must have been leaked by someone in his party,'' said Seres Laszlo, editor of the internet news service Hirszerzo. The finger has been pointed at Katalin Szili, 50, the ambitious speaker of the parliament, who has no time for the prime minister's market reforms and is said to covet his job. She and Mr Gyurcsany fell out last year over Mrs Szili's insistence on running for the presidency. She lost. Now it is the prime minister's turn to face defeat. "Gyurcsany's credibility is damaged and he will not have the courage to introduce as many reforms as he planned,'' said Mr Seres. "In the long term, he has lost.'' He and other commentators believe that the socialists will allow Mr Gyurcsany to hang on for another couple of years before ousting him mid-term, letting him carry the can for tax rises and price increases. But economists warn that if the reforms are hindered, that will ultimately lead to greater financial hardship for those who have fought so bitterly against them. George Jaksity, the former chairman of the Budapest stock exchange, said Hungarians might complain that they were shocked that they had been lied to, but they were only fooling themselves. They could accept that government intervention was necessary, or inflation would eat away at their spending power. Either way, there was a financial price to pay for past fiscal indiscipline. "It is not that, out of the blue, a completely misled nation is faced with the hard facts of an economic crisis,'' he said. Too many people remained dependent on the state and that meant expenditure had to be cut to manage the country's deficits. "This goes beyond what Gyurcsany has said or not said. If it is not this PM, it is another one,'' he said. "The problems are here to stay. We don't have an alternative... Hungary is beyond a rational level of indebtedness.'' As for the violent protests, they fizzled out after police, initially overwhelmed, took delivery of a consignment of American-made riot equipment. Police identified many of the demonstrators as known hooligans associated with the Ferencvaros football club. Major Tamas Kriss said some may have been paid by Right-wing extremists to join the protests. Then a mass demonstration by the opposition Fidesz party, planned for yesterday, was scrapped after claims of a bomb threat - an explanation greeted with widespread scepticism. More likely, people said, Viktor Orban, the leader of Fidesz, feared that any trouble would backfire on him. "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.''
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