MsThang
09-20-2006, 02:32 AM
In protest. Yay for them. Trying to hold someone accountable for lying.
Hungarian PM refuses to resign
BUDAPEST, Hungary (CNN) -- Hungary's prime minister has refused to resign after anti-government riots and vowed to stay in office, even as thousands of flag-waving protesters converged on government buildings Tuesday in increasingly violent demonstrations.
"I am not ready to resign," Ferenc Gyurcsany said, adding that audiotaped statements in which he admitted his government had lied about Hungary's economy were taken out of context.
Gyurcsany insisted Tuesday that his remarks referred to the past 10 or 15 years, and not just the time in which his administration has held Hungary's reins.
"This is perhaps two or three sentences from a very long speech," he said.
"Speaking about this lying issue, you know, the context in which this statement was used was much wider, and it did not refer to the economy precisely, but it referred to the fact that in the last 10 or 15 years, the whole Hungarian political elite was not ready to face the necessity of reforms, and it started to make the people believe that they can be free without bearing that responsibility. ... This is perhaps two or three sentences from a very long speech," Gyurcsany said.
In the hours following his remarks, however, protests in the city escalated.
Although a demonstration outside the parliamentary building dissipated, an angry crowd of about 2,000 people moved into the city center, heading for the Socialist Party headquarters. They also set a car on fire.
The crowd was thrust back by police using tear gas and horses, CNN's Nic Robertson reported.
Scattered battles between police and protesters broke out, and riot police attempting to quell the disturbance were run down and chased away before they retreated, Robertson said.
Earlier Tuesday, Gyurcsany told CNN, "I think that, perhaps, all the details, the important details was not clear for the government, and it was not clear for the public also. We tried to avoid to implement the necessary steps, not even just in the last one and a half years, but for a very long period of time."
Protesters previously had seized the headquarters of Hungary's state television network MTV and set fires in and around the building. (Watch as rioting erupts in Budapest -- 2:18 (javascript:cnnVideo('play','/video/world/2006/09/19/gray.hungary.protests.rtv','2006/09/26');))
Smoke and tear gas wreathed the MTV headquarters where police clashed with demonstrators around midnight Monday. Officers turned water cannon on protesters, and several officers were injured during the demonstrations, police spokesman Lajos Nenet told CNN.
The head of the country's national ambulance service said more than 100 people had been injured during the protests, including two journalists.
Stick to reforms
In an interview on state television, Gyurcsany said he will stick to his reforms "regardless of the results of the local elections" on Oct. 1.
The turmoil exploded Sunday, when state radio aired an audiotape of Gyurcsany telling members of his ruling Socialist Party that his government had lied about the state of the country's economy throughout its two years in office.
"We lied throughout the past one and a half or two years," he said. "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening and also at night."
The remarks came in a conversation taped during a party retreat in May. President Laszlo Solyom said the prime minister's admission has caused a "moral crisis" in Hungary.
"It's very important to protect the right to criticize the government or having the right to say whatever we think about Hungarian public life," Gyurcsany told CNN.
"But we have to separate the democratic way of expressing opinion from the, I would say, brutal, criminal way of doing that. This is very important, to calm down the situation and protecting Hungary and the calm of everyday life."
Gyurcsany has led the the NATO and EU member state since 2004.
His center-left coalition won a new mandate in April by a narrow margin, become the first Hungarian government re-elected since the Iron Curtain came down in 1989. Opponents had accused his government of manipulating economic data during the campaign.
On the tape, Gyurcsany said the government had botched economic policy "not a little bit, but very much. None of the other European countries have done such stupid things that we did."
Gyurcsany told interviewers he was referring to the actions of Hungary's political elite over several years, not just his government.
Gyurcsany won April's election partly on a promise of tax cuts but has since imposed tax increases and benefit cuts of $4.6 billion in 2007 alone to curb Hungary's budget deficit, which will surge by 10.1 percent of its gross domestic product this year.
Investors who hold billions of dollars of Hungarian bonds are worried about the fate of the reforms, which most economists see as the only way to rescue the country's strained finances and keep up hopes of joining the euro zone.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/19/hungary.riots/index.html
Hungarian PM refuses to resign
BUDAPEST, Hungary (CNN) -- Hungary's prime minister has refused to resign after anti-government riots and vowed to stay in office, even as thousands of flag-waving protesters converged on government buildings Tuesday in increasingly violent demonstrations.
"I am not ready to resign," Ferenc Gyurcsany said, adding that audiotaped statements in which he admitted his government had lied about Hungary's economy were taken out of context.
Gyurcsany insisted Tuesday that his remarks referred to the past 10 or 15 years, and not just the time in which his administration has held Hungary's reins.
"This is perhaps two or three sentences from a very long speech," he said.
"Speaking about this lying issue, you know, the context in which this statement was used was much wider, and it did not refer to the economy precisely, but it referred to the fact that in the last 10 or 15 years, the whole Hungarian political elite was not ready to face the necessity of reforms, and it started to make the people believe that they can be free without bearing that responsibility. ... This is perhaps two or three sentences from a very long speech," Gyurcsany said.
In the hours following his remarks, however, protests in the city escalated.
Although a demonstration outside the parliamentary building dissipated, an angry crowd of about 2,000 people moved into the city center, heading for the Socialist Party headquarters. They also set a car on fire.
The crowd was thrust back by police using tear gas and horses, CNN's Nic Robertson reported.
Scattered battles between police and protesters broke out, and riot police attempting to quell the disturbance were run down and chased away before they retreated, Robertson said.
Earlier Tuesday, Gyurcsany told CNN, "I think that, perhaps, all the details, the important details was not clear for the government, and it was not clear for the public also. We tried to avoid to implement the necessary steps, not even just in the last one and a half years, but for a very long period of time."
Protesters previously had seized the headquarters of Hungary's state television network MTV and set fires in and around the building. (Watch as rioting erupts in Budapest -- 2:18 (javascript:cnnVideo('play','/video/world/2006/09/19/gray.hungary.protests.rtv','2006/09/26');))
Smoke and tear gas wreathed the MTV headquarters where police clashed with demonstrators around midnight Monday. Officers turned water cannon on protesters, and several officers were injured during the demonstrations, police spokesman Lajos Nenet told CNN.
The head of the country's national ambulance service said more than 100 people had been injured during the protests, including two journalists.
Stick to reforms
In an interview on state television, Gyurcsany said he will stick to his reforms "regardless of the results of the local elections" on Oct. 1.
The turmoil exploded Sunday, when state radio aired an audiotape of Gyurcsany telling members of his ruling Socialist Party that his government had lied about the state of the country's economy throughout its two years in office.
"We lied throughout the past one and a half or two years," he said. "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening and also at night."
The remarks came in a conversation taped during a party retreat in May. President Laszlo Solyom said the prime minister's admission has caused a "moral crisis" in Hungary.
"It's very important to protect the right to criticize the government or having the right to say whatever we think about Hungarian public life," Gyurcsany told CNN.
"But we have to separate the democratic way of expressing opinion from the, I would say, brutal, criminal way of doing that. This is very important, to calm down the situation and protecting Hungary and the calm of everyday life."
Gyurcsany has led the the NATO and EU member state since 2004.
His center-left coalition won a new mandate in April by a narrow margin, become the first Hungarian government re-elected since the Iron Curtain came down in 1989. Opponents had accused his government of manipulating economic data during the campaign.
On the tape, Gyurcsany said the government had botched economic policy "not a little bit, but very much. None of the other European countries have done such stupid things that we did."
Gyurcsany told interviewers he was referring to the actions of Hungary's political elite over several years, not just his government.
Gyurcsany won April's election partly on a promise of tax cuts but has since imposed tax increases and benefit cuts of $4.6 billion in 2007 alone to curb Hungary's budget deficit, which will surge by 10.1 percent of its gross domestic product this year.
Investors who hold billions of dollars of Hungarian bonds are worried about the fate of the reforms, which most economists see as the only way to rescue the country's strained finances and keep up hopes of joining the euro zone.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/19/hungary.riots/index.html