Hungary PM to close hated communist-era HQ

Budapest, Sept 22: Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany today said he would close his Socialist Party's hated communist-era headquarters which was a focus for rioting in anti-government protests this week.

The building in Budapest was headquarters of the Hungarian communist party, from whom the Socialists are descended, and was the scene of fighting in the failed anti-Soviet uprising of 1956.

In the foyer, covered with a curtain but polished and adorned with a plastic wreath and flowers, is a plaque commemorating the ''martyrs'' who died defending the building from ''the enemies of the Hungarian people'' on October 30, 1956.

In an interview with Le Monde today, Gyurcsany said that after he had declared his candidacy to become party president at a congress on October 24 ''the next working day, I will announce that the Socialist Party's leadership will no longer have its offices in that building''.

One of the main charges against the Socialists, who were heavily defeated in Hungary's first free elections of the modern era, is they are simply communists who slipped into democratic clothing without really changing.

After losing in 1990 the Socialists were back in power in 1994, won in 2002 in alliance with a smaller liberal party and again in elections this year, becoming the first government to hold on to power since the end of communism.

Many of the demonstrators, who launched a week of anti-government protests after a leaked tape in which Gyurcsany said he and the party had lied about the economy to hold on to power in April's election, have shouted ''56, 56''.

They also carried the Hungarian flag with the hammer and sickle cut out, as flown in the uprising which lasted from October 23 until it was crushed by Soviet tanks on November 4.

On Tuesday, the Socialist headquarters was the scene of fighting between rioters and police.

Other communist-era symbols have also been attacked. During an attack on Hungarian state television on Monday night vandals damaged a memorial to Soviet war dead from the 1945 siege of Budapest when the Nazis were driven out.

REUTERS

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