| Ferenc Gyurcsány | |
|---|---|
| Prime Minister of Hungary 6th Prime Minister of the Third Republic of Hungary |
|
| In office 29 September 2004 – 14 April 2009 (4 years, 202 days) |
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| President | Ferenc Mádl László Sólyom |
| Preceded by | Péter Medgyessy |
| Succeeded by | Gordon Bajnai |
| Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports | |
| In office 18 May 2003 – 3 October 2004 |
|
| Prime Minister | Péter Medgyessy |
| Preceded by | György Jánosi |
| Succeeded by | post abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 4 June 1961 Pápa, Hungary |
| Political party | MSZP, DK |
| Spouse(s) | Klára Dobrev |
| Profession | Entrepreneur |
Ferenc Gyurcsány (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfɛrɛnts ˈɟurtʃaːɲ] ( listen); born in Pápa, 4 June 1961) is a Hungarian politician. He was the sixth Prime Minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009.
He was nominated to take that position on 25 August 2004 by the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), after Péter Medgyessy resigned due to a conflict with the Socialist Party's coalition partner. Gyurcsány was elected Prime Minister on 29 September 2004 in a parliamentary vote (197 yes votes, 12 no votes, with most of the opposition in Parliament not voting). He led his coalition to victory in the parliamentary elections in 2006, securing another term as Prime Minister. His first rise to power was the result of a coalition conflict. His legitimacy was permanently questioned by opposition parties based on the fact that he withheld information about the actual budget deficit in his 2006 re-election campaign.[1] He is also criticised for using derogatory terms for his own country.[2] He subsequently continued to attempt to make this topic seem relatively insignificant.[3]
On 24 February 2007, he was elected as the leader of the MSZP, taking 89% of the vote. On 21 March 2009 Gyurcsány announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister.[4][5] He stated that he is a hindrance to further economic and social reforms.[6] President László Sólyom stated that instead of a short term transational government ruling only until the 2010 elections, early elections should be held.[7] On 28 March Gyurcsány resigned from his position as party chairman, he was the leader of MSZP between 2007-2009.[8] A minister under Gyurcsány, Gordon Bajnai became the nominee of MSZP for the post of prime minister in March 2009[9] and he became Prime Minister on April 14.
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Ferenc Gyurcsány was born in Hungary. He attended the Apáczai Csere János High School in Budapest for two years, then he left to his hometown Pápa to graduate. Ferenc Gyurcsány studied as a teacher and obtained his B.Sc. in 1984 from University of Pécs. Then he studied economics at the same institution, getting his degree in 1990.
In 1981 he assumed function in the KISZ, the Organisation of Young Communists, where he mostly handled organizing student programs at the beginning. Between 1984 and 1988 he was the vice president of the organisation's committee in Pécs. Then between 1988 and 1989 he was the president of the central KISZ committee of universities and colleges. After the political change in 1989 he became vice-president of the organisation's short-lived quasi successor, the Hungarian Democratic Youth Association (DEMISZ).
From 1990 onwards, he transferred from the public to the private sector, working for CREDITUM Financial Consultant Ltd. until 1992, serving as director of EUROCORP International Finance Inc. in 1992. Gyurcsany then took the position of CEO at Altus Ltd., a holding company of which he was owner, from 1992–2002 and thereafter as Chairman of the Board.[10] By 2002, he was listed as the 50th richest person in Hungary.[11]
Ferenc Gyurcsány returned to politics in 2002 as the head strategic advisor of Péter Medgyessy, the previous Prime Minister of Hungary. From May 2003 until September 2004 Gyurcsány was a minister responsible for sports, youth and children.
He became the president of the MSZP in Győr-Moson-Sopron county in January 2004, serving until September 2004. In the summer of that same year it seemed that there were larger problems in his relationship with then current Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy, so he resigned as minister. In a week, problems in the coalition led to the resignation of Medgyessy, and MSZP voted Gyurcsány to become Prime Minister as he was acceptable for the coalition partner, Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ).
Gyurcsány was reappointed Prime Minister after the 2006 parliamentary elections, with his coalition taking 210 of the available 386 parliamentary seats, and making him the first Prime Minister to keep the office after a general election since 1990.
On 24 February 2007 he became the leader of his party (being the only candidate for the post) gaining 89% of the vote.
Since his 2006 election victory he has introduced austerity measures to tackle Hungary's budget deficit that had grown to become 10% of the GDP by the end of 2006. These austerity measures have been criticized by the main opposition party Fidesz on the one hand as being too harsh on the people, on the other hand by conservative economists for not reducing spending enough on social benefits, including pensions. Ferenc Gyurcsány has been the first prime minister since the fall of communism to try to introduce a health care reform in order to rationalize and modernize the national health care system. His efforts for a renewed and more efficient health care however, have been undermined mainly by his own party, as many Socialist Party members regard this reform as a threat to the communist era achievement of free and equal health care service to all.
On 17 September 2006, an audio recording surfaced, allegedly from a closed-door meeting of the Prime Minister's party MSZP, held on 26 May 2006, shortly after MSZP won the election. On the recording, Gyurcsány admitted "we have obviously been lying for the last one and a half to two years." Despite public outrage, the Prime Minister refused to resign, and a series of demonstrations started near the Hungarian Parliament, swelling from 2,000 to about 8,000 demonstrators calling for the resignation of Gyurcsány and his government for several weeks. The Prime Minister admitted the authenticity of the recording.[12]
On 1 October, the governing party suffered a landslide defeat in the local municipal elections.[13] On the eve of the elections, before the results were known, President László Sólyom gave a speech in which he said that the solution to the situation is in the hands of the majority in Parliament.[14]
As Prime Minister, Gyurcsány was a strong advocate of the South Stream pipeline project, which aimed to supply Russian gas directly to the European Union (EU); bypassing transit countries such as Ukraine. He signed the contract in Moscow just a week before popularal election at Hungary, which showed around 80% of the votes were against the government reforms.
On 6 October, Gyurcsány won a vote of confidence in Parliament, 207-165, with no coalition MP voting against him. The vote was public.[15] Gyurcsány has been called to step down several times after this incident.
On 21 March 2009 Gyurcsány announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister.[4][5] He stated that he is a hindrance to further economic and social reforms.[6] Gyurcsány asked his party to find a new candidate for prime minister in two weeks.[16] President László Sólyom stated that instead of a short term transational government ruling only until the 2010 elections, early elections should be held.[7] In the search for PM György Surányi became the frontrunner candidate for the post however on the 26th of March he pulled out of the race saying he would not take the job.[17] On 28 March Gyurcsány resigned from his position as party chairman, he was the leader of MSZP between 2007-2009.[18]
He became a member of the National Assembly of Hungary again in 2010 when he won a seat from the Socialist Party's national list in the elections.[19]
On 5 October 2010 Gyurcsány announced to the party executive that he is founding a platform named the Democratic Coalition within the party. He said he will organise “a broad, open social community for 1989 democrats”, and a political representation for them. The mood at the meeting was calm, but several party officials expressed disagreement with him.[20] The Democratic Coalition held its inaugural meeting at 2 p.m. in the Szent István Park in the 13th District on 22 October 2010. Meanwhile, Socialist deputy chairman András Balogh told Népszava in an interview that the party performed poorly at the elections because Gyurcsány's cabinet made mistakes while in government, abandoned left-wing values and became complacent, and because of corruption.[21] The former Prime Minister's group became the Hungarian Socialist party's seventh platform.
Balogh in occasion of an interview in November said socialists must reclaim the vote of the worker from the far right, and to the extent that Gyurcsány wants to build a liberal-centrist wing. he also stated the Democratic Coalition, sought to open a “big front” embracing liberal and certain conservative forces. He added that Gyurcsány would have to accept the party’s concept of renewal, which revolves around emphasising its left-wing credentials, if he wanted the party’s leadership to cooperate with him. Ominously, he called on party members who were directly responsible for the difficult situation of the Socialist party, and society in general, to quit the party.[22] In January 2011 unnamed sources close to the party reported the Magyar Hírlap that Attila Mesterházy and the current Socialist leadership does not want Gyurcsány to get too strong within the party but neither do they want him to leave as a martyr.[23]
László Puch, one one of the most influential Socialist politicians, said that Gyucsány should found his own liberal party instead of breaking up his party.[24] Platforms within the Socialist Party in May 2011 held a debate on whether the party should be developed as a cooperation between left-wing groups or a collective party welcoming non-leftist groups or politicians – a broader alternative to ruling Fidesz. The latter idea was only supported by the Democratic Coalition Platform. All seven platforms of the party agreed that the Socialists do not need a "chieftain", an “Orbán of the Left” but a team leader, István Hiller, the head of the Social Democratic Platform, told reporters during a break of the meeting. He dismissed Gyurcsány’s idea of embracing liberal and conservative trends. Gyurcsány’s model would make the party dysfunctional, he said.[25]
On 22 October 2011 Gyurcsány has announced he is leaving the Socialist Party and will set up a new parliamentary group after succeeding in persuading the necessary number of lawmakers to join him. The new Democratic Coalition party is to be a “Western, civic centre-left” formation with ten lawmakers, Gyurcsány announced on the first anniversary that its forerunner, the Democratic Coalition Platform, was set up. He said the reason why he had decided to leave the Socialists was because the party had failed in its efforts to transform itself. Socialist representatives strongly condemned Gyurcsány, who had only last week signed a pledge to stay on in the party. Gyurcsány in his speech branded the new constitution as “illegitimate”, and insisted that members and heads of the independent branches of state such as the constitutional court and the public prosecutor “exclusively serve Viktor Orbán”.
Mesterházy, the chairman of the MSZP responded that the Socialists would emerge stronger after Gyurcsány forms his own party and parliamentary group, because the opposition force’s lawmakers would no longer be engrossed in an internal struggle. Radical nationalist party Jobbik lawmaker Előd Novák told MTI that Gyurcsány’s new party was “anti-Hungarian”. He also said that Jobbik would now be in a position to provide the stable alternative to Fidesz. Parliamentary group leader of green party LMP, András Schiffer, told MTI his party had a policy of keeping its distance from the internal affairs of other parties. He added that LMP’s main enemy was the “Fidesz two-thirds [majority]“.[26]
Ferenc Gyurcsány lives in his third marriage. He has two sons (Péter and Bálint) from his second marriage with Edina Bognár, and two children (Anna and Tamás) from his third marriage. His spouse is Klára Dobrev, whose maternal grandfather Antal Apró was Hungary's Minister of Industry in the 1950s–60s.
He got his nickname "Fletó"[i 1] from one of his teachers. While prime minister of Hungary, he did not pick up his paycheck, but instead, he donated it to varying organizations.
The origin of his wealth is regularly questioned by the media and political opposition. The weekly paper HVG writes about a biography of Gyurcsány: "[it] concludes that talent played a greater role than corruption in Gyurcsány's success. We have to question this claim. Not just because former functionaries are massively overrepresented among Gyurcsány's business partners, but also because, despite his enormous talent for business, Gyurcsány would never have got where he is today without making use of the contacts and support base of the former state party."[27] József Debreczeni, the biographer in question, originally reached the conclusion "regarding party connections and performance, the latter has been more important".[28]
Opposition MP Péter Szijjártó, as the head of a committee set up to investigate the origins of Gyurcsány's wealth, stated in his report that one of Gyurcsány's companies leased the former vacation site of the Hungarian government in Balatonőszöd and rented the site back to a state-owned company so that the rent paid by the government covered exactly the leasing fee during the first two and a half years of the ten-year lease term (1994–2004).[29]
A person named "Gyurcsányi" was mentioned by Attila Kulcsár, the main defendant in the high-profile "K&H Equities" money laundering scandal in Hungary.[30] The prime minister denied he had any connections with the case.
He often displays himself in the role of an anti-fascist politician, who is strongly against the Hungarian radicalism and anti-semitism. However, he is the subject of criticism by his political opponents for the luxury villa of Rózsadomb in which he lives and is now the property of his recent wife, having been taken away from a Jewish family twice; first it was misappropriated when Hungary was under the rule of Arrow Cross Party, and then again during the time of the communist dictatorship of Mátyás Rákosi.
On 2 September 2004, he said in the Hungarian national television: "Who has a two-room-apartment, would in general deserve three; who has three, four; who has four, a house. Who has an eld..., olderly, elderly?... olderly [struggling with an unintended portmanteau] wife, a younger one; who has a badly behaved kid, a well-behaved. Of course, he would deserve."[31] This triggerd outrage from feminist organisations, women in general, and the opposition.[32][33]
On 2 February 2005, at the birthday party of the Hungarian Socialist Party, for the sake of a joke, Gyurcsány referred to the players of the Saudi national football team as terrorists. Later he apologized, but the kingdom recalled its ambassador from Hungary for a time.[34][35]
During the 2006 general election campaign, a video appeared where Gyurcsány danced as Hugh Grant in Love Actually.[36] According to government officials, the spokesperson of the government asked Gyurcsány to dance, as they re-made most parts of the film as a special gift for the wedding of spokesman András Batiz. Opposition claimed that the video was made public on purpose, as part of the election campaign, to gain popularity for the PM among young adults.
After his return to politics, Gyurcsány was at first tight-lipped on his religious affiliation, leading many to assume that he is an atheist . In an interview aired on TV2 during the 2006 parliamentary election campaign, Gyurcsány said that as a teenager, he "took part in confirmation for about two years" and even considered becoming a priest.[37] Since confirmation can only be taken once, some regarded this claim as a giveaway that he was not telling the truth, while others such as Catholic bishop Endre Gyulai supposed he meant he took part in preparations for a confirmation.[38]
In connection with the unrest fuelled by his speech, he has been criticised in The Economist for "turning a blind eye to police brutality".[39]
On 2009 January 13, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, travelled to Budapest to ask Gyurcsány about their agreement made in October, regarding the stabilization of Hungarian government spending.
As a Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány was said to be an advocate of the South Stream pipeline project, which is aimed to supply Russian gas directly to EU, bypassing transit countries such as Ukraine. He signed the contract in Moscow just week before a referendum at Hungary, which showed around 80% of the votes were against the government reforms. [40]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by György Jánosi |
Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports 2003–2004 |
Succeeded by Position abolished |
| Preceded by Péter Medgyessy |
Prime Minister of Hungary 2004–2009 |
Succeeded by Gordon Bajnai |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by István Hiller |
Chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party 2007–2009 |
Succeeded by Ildikó Lendvai |
| Preceded by Party established |
Chairman of the Democratic Coalition 2011– |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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