Thousands demand ouster of Hungarian PM

A week of violent protests have shaken Hungary after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of the socialist party was caught lying to the Hungarian people about the state of the economy in order to gain reelection. Campaigning before April's national elections, Gyurcsany and his Socialist Party colleagues promised tax cuts and higher spending on social programs–a popular platform with voters who had resisted calls to trim a long pattern of deficit spending in Hungary. A few weeks after winning reelection, however, Gyurcsany told party allies in a closed meeting that the whole campaign had been a charade. In what he thought was a private meeting, Gyurcsany said that he had won reelection only by duping voters about how badly his party had run the country. "We have screwed up," he said. "Not a little but a lot. No country in Europe has screwed up as much as we have. We have obviously lied throughout the past 18 to 24 months. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true... in the meantime we did not actually do anything for four years. Nothing. We lied morning, noon and night. I do not want to carry on with this." When a tape of Gyurcsany's private statements was leaked to Radio Budapest on Sept. 17 it touched off a wave of protests calling for Gyurcsany to step down. The first protests began Sept. 17, drawing thousands. "We are prepared to get rid of this government by radical means, like they did in 1956–in a violent way, if they will not heed the word of peace," said Kemal Gyorgy Ekrem, a notorious far-right activist who claimed to be a spokesman for the demonstrators. On the night of Sept. 18, protesters forced their way into the state television headquarters, taking programs off the air, and swarmed threateningly around parliament. At midnight, about 2,500 masked young men marched to the Socialist party headquarters on Republic Square, where dozens of communist functionaries were lynched during the 1956 uprising. A massive concentration of police authorized by the government to use the toughest possible methods quickly dispersed the crowd. The protests on Sept. 18 were spearheaded by toughs wearing paratroop boots and all the insignia of the far-right. Many were supporters of the ultranationalist Jobbik party. Up to 200 people were injured, including 100 police officers. Gyurcsany described the first night of rioting, which took place in front of the Hungarian Television headquarters, as the "longest and darkest night" in the history of post-socialist Hungary. Protests continued the following day as a coalition between the center-right Fidesz party, and the far-right Jobbik and MIEP parties urged their supporters to participate. Gyurcsany told a campaign meeting: "Nowhere in Europe would the parties of the Center Left and Center Right think about joining the agenda of their own radicals. Here the Center Right and the radical Right cooperate and appear on the same stage." The night of Sept. 19 brought a repetition of the incidents, this time spread throughout the central arteries of the city. As on the previous day, a few hundred rioters, mostly football hooligans and extreme right activists, hurled rocks at policemen, who responded with teargas and water cannons. Protests continued throughout the week. The government estimated that the riots had caused nearly $275,000 in damage by Sept. 20. On Sept. 23 Budapest saw its biggest rally yet as a crowd of between 50,000 people filled the square outside the Hungarian parliament building before the rally broke up around midnight. The rally was organized by the Hungarian Justice and Life party (MIEP), one of two extremist groupings at the hub of the anti-government protest since they combined to bring the country to the brink of chaos six days ago. The center right Fidesz opposition party withdrew its support for the rally after warning of violence, but far-right groups encouraged people from across Hungary to converge on Budapest to try to oust the defiant Gyurcsany. "Originally we wanted to get Fidesz to exert pressure more strongly, but Fidesz has given up," said Istvan Csurka, the leader of the nationalist, anti-semitic Hungarian Life and Justice Party (MIEP), which is now trying to take the leading role in the protests. The leader of MIEP, István Csurka is regarded as one of the most sinister figures in the nationalist undergrowth of Central Europe. His anti-Semitic rhetoric, denouncing Jews for their collaboration with communists and their role in global finance, is familiar territory. But Csurka takes prejudice to crazy heights: 178 Hungarian estate agencies, he claimed, are in Jewish hands in a secret attempt to buy up the country. "This party is anti-Western, anti-capitalist, anti-communist and anti-liberal, and believes that all these enemies are either Jewish or commanded by Jews," said Miklós Haraszti, a MIEP member. "There is no way back from here. We are not going to have a round-table discussion with this government, but we are going to lay down an ultimatum," said Ekrem, a Jabbik member who was charged in 2001 with trying to overthrow the constitutional order. 'We want to bring into existence a real government composed of nationalists." MIEP and Jobbik–who have formed an alliance called the Third Way–are counting on the unrest to win votes in local elections on Oct. 1. Analysts said however that Gyurcsany was likely to survive his biggest crisis in two years of leading the country and that the government would stick to budget reforms which have won preliminary backing from the European Commission. Gyurcsany has said he will stay in power and pledges to implement painful tax rises and spending cuts which have caused his government's popularity to plummet to 25 percent in recent polls from 40 percent at April's election. Many of the unpopular economic policies that the government began to implement after the election were required by the European Union. to keep the country on track for eventual adoption of the euro common currency. The turmoil coincides with a political shake-up in Poland and a failure by Czech leaders to form a new government more than three months after an election, raising investors' worries about political instability across central Europe.