We’re bringing out the big guns for this week on the Hungarian Politics podcast! There was a by-election in the town of Dunaújváros on June 5 that resulted in a victory by the ruling Fidesz party, and we were lucky enough to get to speak with Lajos Bokros about it.
Bokros is the former Finance Minister under the Horn government who introduced a package of financial reforms in 1995 that stabilized the Hungarian economy and put it on a path for future growth. In 2009, he became a European Parliamentarian, and in 2013 he started his own political party, the Movement for a Modern Hungary (MoMa).
In addition to the Dunaújváros election, we asked Bokros to tell us about the legacy of the 1995 stabilization package that he is still strongly associated with, why he re-entered Hungarian politics, how his party differs from other political parties in Hungary, and what the opposition needs to do to get into power.
We then visited a protest organized by the Tanítanék movement in Budapest on June 11. Tanítanék is composed of educators and their supports around Hungary who want to promote changes in the Hungarian educational system. They marched from the Pest side to the Buda side and handed out symbolic “report cards” to the government for their work on education.
At the event, we managed to snag a short Hungarian-language interview with Gyula Molnár, a leading politician with the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and former mayor of Budapest’s District XI, who is currently running to lead the party as its head.
Molnár told us why he was there at the protest, what steps the MSZP should take in the area of education, and what changes he would implement in the party if he is elected as its leader.
You can follow Lajos Bokros on Twitter @lajosbokros, and Gyula Molnár @gygyula
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You can listen to the show in the player at the top of this post, or download the file to your local drive. Thanks for listening!