Defiant Hungary PM refuses to quit after riots

BUDAPEST, Sep 19 (Reuters) Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany rejected opposition calls to quit today after anti-government riots he called the country's ''longest and darkest night'' since the end of communism.

The riots, in which 150 people were hurt, followed the leak of a tape on Sunday in which Gyurcsany said he and his Socialist party had lied for four years about Hungary's budget in order to win a general election in April.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Budapest late yesterday, occupying and setting fire to the state television building and fighting with riot police in the first such violence since communism collapsed at the end of the 1980s.

Higher taxes and fees for healthcare and university tuition had prompted protests before the release of the tape sparked a violent backlash that weakened the Hungarian forint and other currencies across central Europe.

''The longest and darkest night of the third Hungarian republic is behind us,'' Gyurcsany said on state television. ''The borderline between freedom of expression and serious disruption has been obscured.'' There are plans for a big student demonstration on Thursday, seen attracting 10,000 people, which the organisers fear could be hijacked by the opposition.

The soaring budget deficit has forced European Union member Hungary to abandon plans to join the euro single currency in 2010, with analysts now saying 2014 was more realistic.

Today, about 500 anti-government demonstrators had gathered outside parliament by midday. Police presence was light and a Reuters correspondent at the scene said the gathering was peaceful.

Five parliamentary parties passed a resolution condemning the violence; but political analysts said the involvement of extra-parliamentary far right parties Jobbike and MIEP might diminish the value of the statement.

''It is clear that Jobbik wants to use this opportunity as a fast lane to replace MIEP on the political spectrum,'' said Zoltan Kiszelly a political analyst.

A defiant Gyurcsany, facing the biggest challenge in his two-year premiership, told Reuters that resigning was out of the question and he would continue with the tough reforms.

''I had spent three minutes on Sunday night thinking about whether I should step down or whether I had a reason to step down, and the conclusion I came to is that absolutely not,'' Gyurcsany, a 45-year-old millionaire, told Reuters.

The protests came two weeks ahead of local elections on October.

1 and follow a slump in the ruling Socialist Party's popularity to 25 percent in polls from 40 per cent at the election.

The main Fidesz opposition urged the Prime Minister to go amid what it called a ''moral crisis'' while Ibolya David, leader of the smaller opposition Hungarian Democratic Forum, told Hungarian MTV television: ''the prime minister should abandon public life''.

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