Socialist-Led Hungary's Coalition Wins Election - New York Times
April 24, 2006 Hungary's Socialist-Led Coalition Wins Election By REUTERS BUDAPEST, April 23 (Reuters) Hungary's Socialist-led coalition won a general election on Sunday, becoming the country's first government to retain power since the fall of Communism in 1989. With 98 percent of the vote counted in the second round of polling, the election commission projected that the Socialist Party and its Free Democrat allies would increase their majority, to 210 seats from 198 seats, in the 386-member Parliament. The result was a personal triumph for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, who rescued the Socialists from what looked like certain defeat when he took office in 2004, and provides him with a stronger platform to push through political and economic changes. "We understand the responsibility we have been given," Mr. Gyurcsany, 44-year-old a millionaire businessman, told hundreds of ecstatic supporters, some of them waving the national flag. "We have to create a better, more successful Hungary that is better to live in." One of Mr. Gyurcsany's main tasks is to convince the European Union and investors holding billions of dollars in Hungarian bonds that Hungary will finally take action to reduce its budget deficit, the biggest in the Union relative to the size of its economy. Conceding defeat, the opposition leader and former prime minister, Vi...