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How did you experience that at one point, not just one moment, but the last quarter of the eighties, you were the most popular man in Hungary? After all, when the republic was proclaimed, on October 23, 1989, he was in literal danger of death in front of Parliament and was hardly pressured by the fanatics.
It was a miracle … (Listens for a long time, cries.) The cover of my book (Those Dalmatian Times – ed.) Shows the scene where everyone in the crowd wants to get my signature. It shows on my face that I am immensely happy and terrified at the same time, as it really didn’t take long to put myself under pressure. Finally, a professional and two volunteer “government guards” fled to the Parliament building. It is true that I have been an event modeler for two terms, and since 1994 I have been more of an observer. The transition was not easy, but it worked.
Not only was he popular for his parliamentary speeches, you were also one of the shooters on the television show The Window, today we would say, leader.
Three million people viewed the Window every Friday. True, there was only one television, but what channel can produce such an audience these days?
He immersed himself in politics in 1985 and, although it was already a time of soft dictatorship, there was some risk of facing the party as a party member. Never afraid? Or did he squirm only with the courage of the ignorant to speak in Parliament, as in the summer of 1987, when he called Kádár and his circle to death completely explicitly for bankrupting the country?
I remember a case from my parliamentary practice before the 90’s when I negotiated. Without fear. I don’t know if the reader still remembers the pituitary gland. In 1987, it became clear that the Gödöllő-based Human Vaccine Research and Production Institute was transporting human pituitary glands and pituitary glands abroad under a state license, with the approval of the Ministry of Health, and selling them for foreign exchange. And the Health Act of 1972 prohibited the acceptance of consideration for any organ removed from a corpse. Now I have appealed this case for breaking the law László Medve Health Minister. Who, stuttering, with shaking hands and mouths, fought something in response, which was all, just unacceptable. The parliamentary chamber was full of Western correspondents, and when the president of the National Assembly asked if Zoltán Király would accept the minister’s answer, I said yes despite my best convictions.
Did you haggle?
Meg. There was tremendous excitement in the room, something that had never happened before in the Communist Parliament that a response to an interpellation had not been accepted. This would have been the first case in Hungarian and even in the entire history of Eastern Europe. By then I already had two daughters, I am not ashamed, it crossed my mind that if I do not accept the answer to my question, they will knock me down. I didn’t want a bad week. I’m not saying I’m scared, I’d rather say I didn’t want to do stupid things. By the way, he tells everything about the atmosphere that prevailed at that time, which my mother only dared to tell me in October 1991 – when I brought my one-month-old son Marci to Félegyháza – that my grandfather, his father, was a Socdem . Not a murderous thief, not a spy, not a traitor, but a social democrat. I lived most of my life, I was born in 1948, when I found out from my printer grandfather, long deceased, when I was 43 years old, who was a member of the Social Democratic Party at that time. My mother did not dare share such a banal secret with me. He died poor a month and a half later. I would add, there was a basis for their fear, because in communism, being a Socdem was a greater sin than if you had been an archer or a Nazi.
But since we wrote 1987, two years later, the entire existing ruinous construct called socialism has collapsed. Still don’t dare to face the system?
It did not even occur to me in 1988 that a year and a half later there would be a multi-party system and a republic, not a people’s republic. Whoever says he foresaw the changes in 1987 is a liar.
Let’s go back to the topic of popularity. How could a man loved by a country around the nineties surpass his electorate in the 1994 elections?
Very simple. I did not enter the social relationship. I started with the MSZDP colors and the partner offered to start with a common list and we would have been guaranteed every fifth place nationally. I didn’t go into this because I was afraid it would bring down the Social Democratic Party. It would have been like us from the KDNP with Fidesz. After that, when I asked them in the spring to help us collect knockouts, they shook it up.
Would Socdems have had the right to exist in Hungary in the early 1990s?
Yes, if the State Party disappears. But they did not disappear, and the MSZP, the successor party, seized the left side of the parliamentary horseshoe. There is no room left for us, the MSZDP. The other is that Petrasovits Anna and Ruttner Jorge by then he had depreciated the party. Also, today it is clear to me, there were several people in the party who were fulfilling a task and mission by dismantling the MSZDP. It is not difficult to guess which party had an interest in making Socrates impossible.
Were you exhausted by the failure of 1994?
Meg. But much. And then I thought about bringing together the two left-wing parties, the MSZDP and the MSZP. By the way, this idea was led by Rezső Nyers within the MSZP. I remember bringing a meeting to our cabin in Lelle. That is why I joined the MSZP, the successor to the party that excluded me from its ranks in 1988. With Mihály Bihari, László Lengyel and Judge Zoltán together – to achieve this reunification. But today I am clear that it was an illusion. The MSZP refused to share with anyone on the left side of the political arena. However, they were foolish, because by joining together they could have made their party more hall-like, they could have erased, at least in part, the “komcsi” stamp.
There we argued that 24 years after joining the MSZMP, in 1998 he also became a member of the successor party. And the parliamentary elections returned.
I started in Kecskemét, where I grew up. There was also a reality in my victory, and in the end there was not much difference between the Fidesz candidate and me. But I fell short and that ended my political role. I went to Boston to Kennedy School to perfect my English; It wasn’t cheap fun, I was lucky to find a sponsor that partially covered my expenses. I dropped in the middle of the American electoral struggle, I could see the George W. Bush and Al Gore duel between the two, the victory of little Bush, with whose father I was able to shake hands ten years earlier in Budapest. Then I returned home and applied to the Gaming Authority for the position of regional department head, but my application was rejected because I had no administrative practice. To this I said that I was a Member of Parliament for nine years, is it not an administrative practice ?! This was accepted and I became the head of the slot machine licensing department on December 1, 2000. I worked there until 2011, when I retired.
There was no politician who changed more regime than you. Did you get any honor?
Yes, that is, when I first came to this conversation, several people on the street recognized me and detained me. There were those who remembered me from the Window, there were those who belonged to my legislature. These are my honors.
However, he did not break with politics permanently, since by 2014 he even ran in the colors of the LMP in the municipal elections of Budapest. Why in LMP?
They were understanding, especially András Schiffer. I was wondering if politics could really be different. But I didn’t win.
What is your opinion on the Hungarian parliamentarianism in 2021, do you have party preference? After all, it went through just about everyone, in an interesting way except Fidesz.
Honestly, no, I dropped everything. But wait! I was still working at the Gaming Authority when I ran in the MDF colors in the 2010 parliamentary elections …
Na ne …
But sure! They had the ability to join the party, first in regime change, second time in 2010, but I didn’t join then either. I said, kids, should I come in to get fired? Anyway, I collected the receipts and then Fidesz was accused of finding a man who claimed that I paid him three thousand florins for the receipt. Criminal proceedings have been started, they have even been stolen! Of course, the charges were later dropped.
So you can’t have a very good opinion of Fidesz …
This is a strange thing. At that moment, the “Chuhas! On your knees in prayer! “His speech in the 1990 parliament was not very understanding, but they liked the party itself, they were dynamic, young. Of course, today they are aging me … Fidesz has a quality that impresses me. Its effectiveness. The other parties They seem to be amateurs next to them. To Ripacs. And then I was benevolent. Of course, they needed time for this, that is their current efficiency and professionalism between 1998 and 2002.
Are you going to vote in 2022?
I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll probably go.
And who will you vote for?
I don’t know yet, but I am inclined to go to Fidesz. But I keep waiting. I still have a good year.
How do you define yourself? I mean politically.
I carry conservatism in my genes. My father was sixty years old when I was born in 1948; my mother was half old; I still saw many Ferencjóska, and even received his master’s degree in the monarchy since he was born in 1888. He provided me with a living link to our past. Perhaps I would say that I am a conservative popular commoner.
Tell us about three politicians from before the 1990s that you respected.
Can I say something Miklós Németh. Without Németh, there would have been no regime change, or if it had, it certainly would not have happened. And if I really needed two more, my two fellow actors, Banffy Jorge and Ferenc Kállai I would say.
And the set after the regime change?
Well, other than Orban, it would be difficult to distinguish someone.
You must have been very impressed by Imre Nagy’s new burial, his June 16, 1989 speech, “Ruskik, at home!”
What if Viktor had known he was opening doors! Miklós Németh visited Moscow in early March and agreed with Gorbachev to withdraw Soviet troops. Only then did no one in Hungary know that …
(Cover image: Bodnár Patrícia / Index)
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