PM admits government lied heavily to win re-election

"Obviously we lied morning, noon and night in the last 18 to 24 months, and we achieved nothing over the last four years," Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is heard telling a Socialist caucus meeting in Balatonőszöd on May 26 in an audio recording anonymously leaked to the media on Sunday.

Gyurcsány used swear words in his 25-minute speech, as he responded to comments made by other Socialist politicians. He also said "the cabinet has not done a single thing in four years."

Gyurcsány added that his fellow Socialists cannot name any major governmental measures taken in the past four years of which "we can be proud, except pulling the country out of the shit. If we had to give an account to the nation of what we did in the past four years, what would we tell them?"

Speaking in Győr on Sunday, Gyurcsány admitted the authenticity of the recording and said "one uses different language at a function for party activists than in front of the general public." Later on ATV he denied that he solely criticised the activity of the Socialist-Free Democrat government and that his words "we lied" referred to the state of the economy.

Free Democrat chairman Gábor Kuncze said he hopes that an open debate will start in politics, but disagreed that nothing has been done in the last four years.

Gyurcsány's words prompted opposition party Democratic Forum to call for the immediate release of the speech in full. "In a normal country the prime minister only makes such a declaration if he had already announced his intention to resign," said an official party statement.

Magyar Hírlap suggested that the recording had been intentionally leaked from Gyurcsány's entourage so he can dominate the remaining two weeks prior to the local elections. More than 1,000 demonstrators converged in Kossuth tér outside Parliament last night, and called for Gyurcsány's resignation.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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