Six months ago, the Hungarian Socialist Party gained a narrow victory in that country's Parliamentary elections. Now Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has announced in caucus that his party lied to win by painting a completely false picture of the success of their policies, and that "tough reforms" are now needed.
There are obvious echoes of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson here, though they at least had the cover of not being in government before they "discovered" that radical "reform" was required. But unlike New Zealand in the 80's and early 90's, Hungary has a (roughly) proportional representation system and a coalition government. It will be interesting to see what the Hungarian Socialists' coalition partner makes of this sudden bout of honesty and proposed change of direction, and whether coalition politics really is a check on outright dishonest politicians who lie to gain election...
1 comments:
Interesting. the austerity measures are already being implemented. Hungary is off the good path. Everybody I talked to during a recent visit thinks they are heading in the wrong direction. politicians were previously lacking the courage to make the hard decisions and now the deficits are too big to ignore. now they charge an overnight fee for hospital beds.
Posted by sagenz : 9/18/2006 07:29:00 PM
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