Posted on 09/18/2006 3:43:06 PM PDT by blam
Protests target Hungary state TV
Protesters have tried to storm Hungary's state TV station after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted that his party had lied to win an election. Police used teargas to disperse the demonstrators in the capital Budapest.
Mr Gyurcsany's admission came after Hungarian radio played a tape of a meeting he had with his Socialist MPs a few weeks after the election in April.
Thousands gathered outside parliament on Sunday calling for Mr Gyurcsany to resign, but he has refused.
Shep (Fox News) just said that the TV station was now on fire.
Just saw it on Fox.
Any insight on the situation there?
Must be that new "Hot" fall lineup......
More coverage now, cars ablaze alaso.
Gee CNN and PMSNBC and CBS and ABC lied about our economy too.
There were a whole lot of people there from what I saw of the video and something about a fire
It's a paycheck.
Is there video online?
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 18/09/2006)
Hungary's Socialist Party has publicly backed prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany after the leak of a tape in which he admitted lying to win April's general election, despite opposition calls for him to quit.
Ferenc Gyurcsany: lies
The taped comments, in which Mr Gyurcsany said "we lied in the morning, we lied in the evening" about the need to raise taxes, among other things, were made at a party meeting in which he urged the party to embrace economic reform to fix Hungary's persistent budget problems.
Also in the recording, which was made in May and leaked yesterday, Mr Gyurcsany told deputies of his Socialist Party that they had "screwed up. It's obvious that we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true."
Party president Istvan Hiller pledged the Socialists, the largest member of a coalition government, would stand behind the reforms, which entail measures like higher taxes which were not in the election manifesto and which have triggered a slump in party popularity.
He said: "We will carry through every single economic measure passed by parliament and which serve to reeastablish the economic balance."
Hungary's main opposition Fidesz party said it would meet president Laszlo Solyom to discuss the situation and called on Mr Gyurcsany to resign.
Tibor Navracsics, Fidesz parliamentary faction leader, said: "This is an unprecedented crisis in the history of Hungarian democracy and Ferenc Gyurcsany is not part of the solution, but the problem."
Political analysts said there was little the president could do apart from express his displeasure about the comments.
While the tape may damage the Socialists in local elections next month, which they already looked set to lose, economists said it also showed Mr Gyurcsany was serious about reforms to fix Hungary's ailing finances.
Socialist gov't lies....say it isn't so.
Shocking I tell ya...shocking.
/sarc
It says he lied to get re-elected and I'm willing to guess Fidesz lost in part because they were stuck with telling the truth.
Just a guess based on what I know of how European politics works.
Socialists would never lie would they?
Well think about how bad PBS is here, and think how bad public television must be once an openly socialist government runs it. Can you blame them?
The prime minister was not caught. He came forward to confess. That's a little bit different, you know. He told the truth now, not because his conscience was telling him to, but because the country's government is facing serious financial crisis. There's no way to raise enough money for the government. They ran out of tricks. They ran out of money. They ran out of plans and ideas. This is why the PM confessed the truth. I heard his speech, and it seems to me that he repented and he is ready to do any change.
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