OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 203, 18 October 1996

OFFICIAL SAYS HUNGARIAN POLITICS NEED CLEANSING. Peter Hack, deputy
caucus leader of the junior coalition party Alliance of Free Democrats
(SZDSZ), has said that it is necessary to "internally cleanse" the
party, just as it is necessary to cleanse Hungarian politics in general,
Magyar Hirlap reported on 18 October. "Unless this happens in time, the
political elite could sink into a morass of corruption, and a situation
could develop similar to that in Italy in 1990," he added. Meanwhile,
the opposition Young Democrats have responded to a letter from Prime
Minister Gyula Horn in which he said that interference in the
privatization process is unconstitutional. They demanded that the
privatization process be suspended and said that if any governing party
is implicated in the recent privatization scandal, Hungary's democratic
foundations would be shaken. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave