József Antall (1990 – 1993)József Antall was born in 1932. Mr. Antall’s father, József Antal Sr, served as a minister during the Prime Minister Pál Teleki’s interwar government in 1939 and served as a member of parliament following the end of the Second World War and prior to the establishment of Communist hegemony. Mr. Antall received his university degree in 1954 from the Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, in history and literature. Mr. Antall became political active during the 1956 revolution, within the Christian-Conservative camp and specifically, in the colours of the Smallholders’ Party. Following the aborted revolution, Mr. Antall was arrested by Communist authorities and in 1959 the government revoked his teaching license. Mr. Antall later worked as a researcher and historian. In 1989, Mr. Antall as a participant in the Round Table discussion and represented the recently-established Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF – Magyar Demokrata Fórum). The MDF began as a hybrid organization of Christian democrats, other conservatives and “national liberals.” In May 1990, Mr. Antall proved victorious in Hungary’s first democratic election after 40 years of Communism and his victory ushered in a period of a moderate Christian-conservative government. The conservative prime minister created a coalition government with the resurrected Independent Smallholders’ Party (FKGP – Független Kisgazda Párt) and the Christian Democratic Peoples’ Party (KDNP – Keresztény Demokrata Néppárt). Mr. Antall also negotiated a deal with the largest opposition party, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ – Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége), which contributed to a stable government. Mr. Antall died of cancer in December 1993, leaving behind him a widow, two adult sons and a government that has lost much of its popularity. Mr. Antall spoke English, French and German.
Péter Boross (1993 – 1994)Péter Boross was born in 1928. Mr. Boross replaced József Antal as prime minister following his death and served as a "lame-duck", care-taker prime minister until the spring 1994 elections, when his party suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP – Magyar Szocialista Párt).
Gyula Horn (1994 – 1998)Gyula Horn was born in Budapest in 1932. Mr. Horn graduated from the Don Rostov College of Economics and Finance in 1954 and began working for the Hungarian foreign ministry in that same year. Mr. Horn also worked for the Hungarian missions in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In 1989, Mr. Horn, serving as foreign minister, was instrumental in dismantling the iron curtain between Hungary and Austrian and in allowing thousands of East German tourists vacationing around Lake Balaton to escape to the west. Many argue that Mr. Horn’s actions hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Communist-turned-democrat became chairman of the newly-formed Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP – Magyar Szocialista Párt) in 1990. Riding on a wave of dissatisfaction with Hungary’s first democratic government and its handling of the economy, Mr. Horn won a resounding victory in 1994 and a majority of seats in the Hungarian parliament. He furthered strengthened his position by forming a coalition with the previously deeply anti-Communist Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ – Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége). During his four years in office, Mr. Horn’s government initiated tough economic austerity measures, including major cut-backs in most areas of social spending. Moreover, the Socialists under Mr. Horn hastened the process of privatization. During his final months in office, the Socialist government did offer society some new social benefits—the most lasting reform meant that all transportation fees were waived for seniors, who were now permitted to travel for free on all trains and public transportation in Hungary.
Viktor Orbán (1998 - 2002)Viktor Orbán was born in 1963, in the western town of Székesfehérvár. He received his first university degree in 1987 from the Eötvös Loránd University’ss faculty of law in Budapest.In 1989, after having been awarded a scholarship from the Soros Foundation, Mr. Orbán spent the school year at Oxford University where he studied the liberal political philosophies prevalent in Anglo-Saxon cultures. Prior to leaving from England, however, Mr. Orbán helped establish the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz). The young democratic activist and adversary of the Communist regime became something of a national figure following a speech he gave on July 16, 1989, during the rehabilitation and reburial of Imre Nagy, Hungary’s prime minister during the 1956 revolution, who was later executed for his role in the uprising. Following the first free elections of 1990, Mr. Orbán was a member of parliament and served as leader of his fledgling radically liberal youth party, Fidesz.
By 1995, Mr. Orbán had engineered a major transformation within his party, which saw Fidesz dump its radical liberalism for an etatist conservatism. Fidesz thus became the premiere centre-right political force in Hungary, with the other conservative parties—the MDF, FKGP and the KDNP—weakened after four years in office.
Mr. Orbán was elected prime minister of Hungary in 1998, after he beat the incumbent Socialist prime minister, Gyula Horn, and formed a conservative coalition government with the right-wing Independent Smallholders’ Party (FKGP – Független Kisgazda Párt) and the centre-right Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF – Magyar Demokrata Fórum). Mr. Orbán’s politics during his four years in government and after, as leader of the largest opposition party, may be best characterized as an Etatist conservatism. Mr. Orbán has opposed some forms of privatization and has sought to maintain a large state-apparatus, gravitated toward economic nationalism and thus placed himself at odds with neo-liberals. Moreover, under Mr. Orbán government, Hungary’s historic churches and denominations have been given an important role in the formation and expression of national culture. Sometimes decried a populist by his opponents, Mr. Orbán attempted to trascend the traditional boundaries of parliamentary democracy in order to take the politics of the nation out on the streets of Budapest—in the form of mass demonstrations and rallies—and to the smallest villages of rural Hungary, through a series of townhall meetings.
Following the Fidesz government’s unexpected—though narrow—defeat in the 2002 elections to the Socialists, Mr. Orbán has been the driving force behind the effort to unite all right-wing and right-of-centre voters under a single political party, thus avoiding the fragmentation of the conservative vote. Mr. Orbán has become the undisputed leader of the Hungarian right and turned his party into an alliance incorporating former members of the defunct Smallholders’ Party, Christian Democrats and disgruntled members of the Hungarian Democratic Forum.
With the disintegration of all parties on the right, the formation of a bipartisan political system—with the Socialists representing the left and Fidesz embodying the right—seems very much in the making. Fidesz will be heading into the upcoming 2006 elections with the telegenic, charismatic and well-spoken Mr. Orbán at the helm, in the hopes of taking back the reins of power from the Socialists and returning the right’s favourite son back to the prime minister’s office.
Mr. Orbán is married and has five young children.
Hungary’s former conservative prime minister earned a doctoral degree and speaks English.
Péter Medgyessy (2002 – 2004)Péter Medgyessy was born in Budapest, in 1942. He graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Economics in 1966 and later earned a PhD degree. Mr. Medgyessy became finance minister in 1987, where he prepared the way for Hungary’s transition to a market economy, by implementing reforms in the fields of banking and taxation. Mr. Medgyessy became deputy prime minister in 1988, during the dying days of the old one-party, Communist regime. After several years in the private sector, Mr. Medgyessy returned to politics and served as finance minister from 1996 to 1998 under Gyula Horn’s Socialist government. In 2001, he became the Socialist Party’s candidate for prime minister and narrowly won the April 2002 elections. The Socialist prime minister formed a coalition government with the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ – Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége). But a few weeks following his electoral victory, the prime minister found himself embroiled in a scandal that threatened to topple his fledgling government. Magyar Nemzet, Hungary’s right-wing outed Mr. Medgyessy by publishing a set of documents that proved him to have served as a counter-espionage agent under the code name „D-209,” working for the former Communist regime. Mr. Medgyessy avoided defeat after the his liberal coalition partner decided to honour its agreement with the Socialists. After a massive defeat on the part of the Socialist Party in the June 2004 EU parliamentary elections, Mr. Medgyessy’s position weakened within both the government and within his party. On August 25, the prime minister tendered his resignation, once he realized that his coalition partner, and leaders within his own party had lost confidence in him and were pondering his replacement.
Mr. Medgyessy speaks French and Romanian.
The former Socialist prime minister is married and has two adult children.
Ferenc Gyurcsány (2004 – present )Ferenc Gyurcsány was born in 1961, in the western town of Pápa. In 1984, he completed teachers’ college and in 1990 went on to receive a university degree from the Janus Pannonius University of Sciences in the southern city of Pécs. From 1984 to 1988 Mr. Gyurcsány served as the general secretary of Pécs’s local branch of the Alliance of Communist Youth (KISZ), Hungary’s communist youth movement. Following the change in regime, Mr. Gyurcsány left politics entirely and entered the private sphere where he became a very successful businessman. Mr. Gyurcsány returned to politics in 2002 when he was appointed Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy’s advisor. In 2003, he was appointed minister of sports and—through something of a palace coup, succeeded his former boss and became prime minister of Hungary.
As prime-minister Mr. Gyurcsány has followed the economic liberalism of his predecessor. Nevertheless, in his first months in office, the Socialist head of government assumed a more confrontational approach with the right-wing opposition—and specifically, with Viktor Orbán—accusing his opponents of being nationalists and the Catholic Church (an unofficial supporter of the right) of being clerical and anachronistic in its political and social views. At the time of his appointment as prime minister, there was widespread consensus among Socialists that the well-spoken--though at times flippant--young prime minister represented a new generation in left-wing politics and that he could give the energetic and popular Mr. Orbán a run for his money in the 2006 elections. Since politics in Hungary has become increasingly a game of competing personalities, Mr. Gyurcsány has sought to place himself diametrically opposite his conservative rival. While Mr. Gyurcsány is a defender of neo-liberal economic policies, a secular state and the concept of a "modern republic," he sees Mr. Orbán as representing a world of clericalism, nationalism and state intervention.
Mr. Gyurcsány is married and has four young children. The prime minister speaks English.
