Truck and Barter: Hungarians not happy with their leader

Hungarian Prime Minister admits he lied during the election campaign in a private conversation- at least he’s honest;

“You cannot mention any significant government measures that we can be proud of, apart from the fact that in the end we managed to get governance out of the shit. Nothing. If we have to give an account to the country of what we have done in four years, what are we going to say? …
Divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy, and hundreds of tricks, which you do not have to be aware of publicly, have helped us to survive this. This cannot go on. Cannot. And of course we can ponder for a long time, and a shitload of analyses can be carried out as to how each social group will be affected, this is what I can say to you. ….

Even if we work ourselves into the ground. We are doing a great and decent job among ourselves. We must do it. I am not talking about the New Hungary, developments, Hungarians beyond the border, relationship with churches, or another thousand things because these are not the most important things compared to the big picture…
I will only repeat this once at most: it is fantastic to be in politics. Fantastic. It is fantastic to run a country. Personally, I have been able to go through the past 18 months because one thing has inspired and fuelled me: to give back its faith to the left, that it can do it and it can win. That the left does not have to lower its head in this bloody country. That it does not have to shit its pants from Viktor Orban [chairman of opposition Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Alliance] or the right, and it should learn to measure itself against the world, rather than them...
I know that this is easy for me to say. I know. Do not keep bringing it up against me. But this is the only reason it is worth doing it. I almost perished because I had to pretend for 18 months that we were governing...

Instead, we lied morning, noon and night. I do not want to carry on with this. Either we do it and have the personnel for it, or others will do it. I will never give an interview at the end of which we part with each other in argument. Never. I will never hurt the Hungarian left. Never.”

Comments

Carmen wrote:

That's why one should never lie! He has hidden the truth from the people who believed him. Even now, telling the hidden truth after so many years, that's to say wanted to purge himself, his lies all the way played against him. Never lie! Better say nothing.

-- September 20, 2006 2:29 AM ∞

Viktor wrote:

Actually I am from Hungary, and the translation doesn't gives back everything correctly. Gyurcsány talks about the political elit, not about himself or his party. And this makes a huge difference.

Even if he lied, he is the first politician in Hungary who acknowledges that not making any steps, but knowing about their necessity is a lie. Because actually this is what has happened. Otherwise everything was legal.

With these details actually I can not decide what is better for Hungary, if he leaves his seat or not. The opposition has never acknowledged these facts, even now is only focusing to its political career. So the opposition would do 2 things. 1: get the fruits of the summer reforms, 2: get the conclusion that what they did until now (to lie with doing nothing) is enough to stay on power.
On the other hand we can choose someone who explicitly said that the hungarian political elit is badly qualified (and this makes a difference, althogh I don't know wheater it is positive or negative), but already made a lot to change the habits, and there is finally some chance that the political area can become "better".

-- September 20, 2006 8:28 AM ∞

paul wrote:

A commentary on the issue by a historian-

Truth in the free market;Hungarians have been fed lies consistently since 1989 - it is post-communism's dirty secret

History loves the irony of an anniversary. In 1989, commemorations of 1789 were overshadowed by upheavals. Now, 50 years after the Hungarian uprising sent shockwaves through the communist world, what Hungary's prime minister called the country's worst violence in those five decades has shattered the complacency about post-communism's stability and success.

Remember the rhetoric of anti-communism in 1989. "No more lies." Well, today it is back with a vengeance. In 1956, when Khrushchev's "secret speech" revealing the truth about Stalin's rule was leaked, it set off a crisis across the communist bloc, peaking in the Hungarian revolt. This Sunday, the fuse was lit by the leak of the Hungarian prime minister's crude admission to a secret Socialist party meeting in May: "We lied throughout the past one and a half or two years. We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening and also at night."...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1876402,00.html

-- September 20, 2006 1:51 PM ∞

paul wrote:

Hungarians flock to grab "we screwed up" website
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's blunt admission he lied to win an election has sparked outrage, riots and a race to claim a website over his comments.

The Hungarian web portal Index reported Tuesday that three license requests for the elkurtuk.hu ("we screwed up" in Hungarian) website had been submitted to the domain registration body ISZT.

Gyurcsany admitted in a taped speech that was leaked to the media that his Socialist-led government had lied to win general elections in April and that "we screwed up" a lot.

It was unclear whether the domain name would be approved as Hungarian domain licensing regulations stipulate that requests for manipulative or potentially outrageous domain names can be rejected.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-09-20T143944Z_01_L19709021_RTRUKOC_0_US-HUNGARY-WEBSITE1.xml&archived=False

-- September 20, 2006 8:13 PM ∞

Truck and Barter

Hungarians not happy with their leader

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