Hungary: disloyal Socialists

When Prime Minister Ference Gyurcsany makes a keynote speech to the Socialist Party (MSzP) board on Saturday, he may wish he were somewhere else.

The meeting -- which has been likened to a party parliament -- will hear Gyurscany promote a new start, offer to 'fine-tune' reforms that are needed to turn the economy around but hated by traditional Socialists, and promise more dialogue and consultation.

His problem is that the MSzP -- which triumphed at the April 2006 parliamentary elections -- has trailed the centre-right opposition Fidesz badly in opinion polls since September 2006, when a tape was leaked of Gyurcsany confessing to party members he had lied "morning, noon and night" about the economy to win the elections.  According to one recent poll, Fidesz has 53% support among those intending to vote and expressing a party preference, and the MSZP just 23%.

There are bad times for Gyurscany just around the corner.   His chief of staff, Zoltan J Gal, is resigning for "family reasons" -- the 35-year-old journalist has been the MSzP leadership's media maven for the past seven years.  MSzP Vice President Ferenc Juhasz -- whom Gyurcsany picked this month to convince the public that the reforms are the right course -- last week said the government should abandon its "reform craze", adding darkly that if the MSzP did not recover the public's confidence, "personnel changes" might follow.  On January 11, nine out of 13 MSzP councillors in a Budapest suburb defected to the Social Democrats.

Fidesz is mounting a populist referendum campaign this spring calling on the public to give its view on fees for healthcare and education; if they are roundly condemned, the prime minister's position may become untenable.  Leftists are openly looking for a replacement for Gyurcsany.  Should they succeed, a shift away from reform may follow.