Miklós Németh blames his successors

Hungary’s last reformist Communist Prime Minister accuses the successive heads of government after 1990 of having neglected basic economic and constitutional reforms.

In the first half of a long interview on 24.hu, Miklós Németh describes how his peasant parents and grandparents turned from enemies and victims of the communist regime into its passive supporters, as political and police pressure subsided in the 1960s. That was why he joined the Communist Party, became a high ranking official, and later  Prime Minister in charge of the transition to democracy. He recalls that in 1986, party chief János Kádár called reformist Soviet leader Gorbachev ‘the grave-digger of Socialism’. Németh left his post, handing over to the first democratically elected PM József Antall a 3-year economic recovery plan and a draft constitution for the new parliament to discuss. He blames Mr Antall as well as all his successors for brushing those documents aside. He believes that today’s difficulties and controversies are the direct result of their negligence.

Tags: Antall, régime change