Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In coalition with two smaller parties, the MDF governed Hungary soundly during its dif-
ficult transition to a full market economy. But despite initial successes in curbing inflation
and lowering interest rates, economic problems slowed development; the government's
laissez-faire policies did not help. In a poll taken in mid-1993, 76% of respondents were
'very disappointed' with the way things had worked out.
Perhaps not surprisingly, in the May 1994 elections the MSZP, led by Gyula Horn, won
an absolute majority in Parliament. This in no way implied a return to the past, and Horn
was quick to point out that his party had initiated the whole reform process in the first place.
Hungarians sometimes refer to the four decades from 1949 to the change in regime in
1989 as 'az átkos 40 év'(the damned 40 years).
The Road to Europe
After its dire showing in the 1994 elections, the Federation of Young Democrats (Fidesz) -
which until 1993 had limited membership to those under 35 to emphasise a past untainted
by communism, privilege and corruption - moved to the right and added the extension
'MPP' (Hungarian Civic Party) to its name to attract the support of the burgeoning middle
class. In 1998 it campaigned for integration with Europe; Fidesz-MPP won the vote by
forming a coalition with the MDF and the agrarian conservative FKgP. The party's youthful
leader, Viktor Orbán, was named prime minister. Hungary became a fully fledged NATO
member the following year.
The electorate grew increasingly hostile to Fidesz-MPP's (and Orbán's) nationalistic rhet-
oric and unseated the government in April 2002, returning the MSZP, allied with the
SZDSZ, to power under Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy, a free-market advocate who had
served as finance minister in the Horn government. Hungary was admitted into the EU in
May 2004, but three months later Medgyessy resigned when it was revealed that he had
served as a counterintelligence officer in the late 1970s and early 1980s while working in
the finance ministry. Sports Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány became prime minister.
A Place of Its Own Making
Reappointed prime minister in April 2006 after the electorate gave his coalition 55% of 386
parliamentary seats, Ferenc Gyurcsány immediately began austerity measures to tackle Hun-
gary's budget deficit, which had reached a staggering 10% of GDP. But in September, just
as these unpopular steps were being put into place, an audiotape recorded shortly after the
election at a closed-door meeting of the prime minister's cabinet had Gyurcsány confessing
