ICE - special Hungary's new president

New Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, photo: CTK Radio Budapest's Istvan Kollar has some background on the new President:

"Well, I think the election of Laszlo Solyom as Hungary's new Head of State can be considered as unique in at least two respects. It was for the first time that parliament elected a candidate of the opposition parties as president and it was also for the first time that a candidate, originally proposed by a civic organisation, gained a top position in Hungary. Regarding this latter aspect, Laszlo Solyom was a presidential candidate put forward by a civic organisation, a group of conservative intellectuals called the Protective Future Society. Actually, Solyom himself has an NGO past because, as a legal expert, he assisted the activity of environmental movements including the Danube Circle in the 1970s and 1980s. He then played an instrumental role in the elaboration of the legal safeguards of a peaceful change of the political system in Hungary in 1989 and he was the first president of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, set up in 1990.

"When he left his position as Chief Justice eight years later, he started lecturing and has been a professor of law at the Peter Pazmany catholic University and the Nyelvu Andrassy German-speaking University in Budapest. I think with that background, Solyom was probably justified to say in his acceptance speech that he was not a 'party' man and therefore no party should take his election as a fiasco."

But surely this is a blow to the government - why didn't the opposition candidate get the backing of all of the coalition?

"The main coalition party Socialists certainly felt differently. Their candidate, Katalin Szili lost the race for the presidency by three votes after 17 of the twenty MPs of the junior coalition party Free Democrats abstained from the vote. The liberal party did not accept Szili as a joint coalition candidate on the ground that as a member of the Socialist Party presidium, she was a party politician. In fact, the Free Democrats had serious doubts about her qualifications for the position, although they never said it openly."

Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany says the coalition will continue with the reform program - can the coalition perform given its failure to get their candidate elected?

New Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, photo: CTK "Well, at this very moment it is difficult to foretell. In public statements, officials of both coalition parties have reiterated their commitment to continue to govern the country together. Unlike in some other countries in the region, in Hungary, there are no conditions for minority governing. The socialists and the liberals are also aware that only together, they have a chance of retaining power after the general elections in late spring or early summer next year. The socialists cannot win a majority on their own and the Free Democrats would find it difficult to reach the 5 percent parliamentary threshold without the socialists withdrawing their own candidates and calling onto supporters to vote for the Free Democrat candidate in some constituencies.

"So, despite their shared fiasco in the presidential elections, they have no sensible alternative to continued cooperation. However, the Socialist Party has called a special congress this weekend to assess the coalition situation and many rank-and-file members very much resent the liberal party's attitude and are equally critical of their own party leaders of their failure to 'convince' the coalition party on the need to support the Socialist Party's presidential candidate."