Protesters push for new purge

Hungarian police disperse the crowd at Budapest's Western Railway Station after protesters keep up pressure on Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. Picture / Reuters

HUNGARY - Gabor Topolay was just 2 when communism was toppled in Hungary but he has strong views about what happened then, and what didn't. "The ex-communists became the biggest capitalists," said Gabor as he stood with his flag-waving friends and fellow protesters at midnight outside the Parliament building in Budapest's Kossuth Square. "Our goal is to wash them out of political and economic life because the slaves of the old system cannot be important people in this country. They were killers."

The 19-year-old law student is one of thousands of young people who believe that the problems faced by today's Hungary were spawned by the bloodless transition of 1989, which failed to purge ex-communists from public life.

Ferenc Gyurcsany, Hungary's beleaguered socialist Premier, triggered this week's mass protests with his leaked admission that he lied to the voters "morning, noon and night" to win April's elections.

But what makes him such a hate figure to opponents is the fact that he held a post in the Young Communists under the old regime, then profited from its demise.

A series of property deals during the privatisation hey-days of the 1990s made him one of the country's 50 richest men. Though he comes from a humble background, Gyurcsany lives in a lavish villa with his third wife, Klara Dobrev, the granddaughter of a communist-era leader. For many of the protesters outside the Hungarian Parliament Gyurcsany is living proof that the country never confronted its past.

Sebestyen Gorka, director of think-tank the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security, says other ex-communist nations managed things better.

"In Poland, they had years of opposition with Solidarnosc," Gorka says. "In the Czech Republic they had Vaclev Havel and Charter 88, people who said 'We are not going to negotiate with, and legitimise, the old regime. We are going to sit down in a theatre and tell them what the problem is.' We didn't have any of this."

He believes the laws on excluding ex-communists from public life were too weak to have an impact in Hungary. Gorka adds: "In Chile, it took 30 years to talk about the dictatorship. Here 16 years is evidently too short a time to deal with this issue. But, finally, the youth is saying: 'you guys are a bunch of illegitimate liars'."

As the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against communism looms, young Hungarians have a reminder that some of their parents and grandparents ordered the execution of others.

If Gyurcsany is the main target, the ex-Premier and Opposition leader, Viktor Orban, is not immune from criticism.

Agnes Vadai, a socialist MP, says: "If you look at the Orban Government of 1998-2002 there were more ex-communists than in the current socialist Government. In Hungary there were 1 million members of the Communist Party. Almost everybody is linked to the old regime, or has a relative or friend who was. This country is a very lucky country because it had a peaceful transition."

Orban has demanded the Prime Minister's resignation but does not seem eager to take over, suggesting a temporary government of experts. He knows that, to tackle the country's spiralling budget deficit, the worst in the European Union at 10 per cent of gross domestic product, any government will have to take unpopular measures.

"Anybody who became a political leader has a shelf life of four years," says Gorka. "They are going to be the next scapegoat for this shock-therapy." But Orban also reduced the pressure on Gyurcsany by cancelling a mass party rally scheduled for the weekend. And his cautious reaction may reflect the knowledge that support for all mainstream politicians is brittle.

Outside parliament, Gabor says the Opposition is better than the Government but that it "failed" when it was in power. He adds: "That is why we need a revolution. We have to have a proper change."

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