Ferenc Gyurcsány of Hungary’s opposition party Democratic Coalition (DK) is resigning as chairman and from all other positions, his wife, DK MEP Klára Dobrev, announced on her Facebook page. Gyurcsány has made the decision to retire from public life, and the two will also be separating after 30 years of marriage.
“Ferenc Gyurcsány will always enjoy the friendship, love, and respect of the entire DK community,” she added.
According to Dobrev, the decision was made because Gyurcsány “wants to put a permanent end to the Hungarian right-wing trying to escape all its sins by lying about Gyurcsány.” DK will hold a new presidential election soon, with executive vice president Csaba Molnár holding the position for now.
In the post, she writes that their mutual respect and friendship for each other are eternal, but now they are grieving. “This is the first thing in a long time that we have to deal with separately, not together,” Dobrev wrote.
Ferenc Gyurcsány was the prime minister of Hungary between 2004 and 2009. He fell from power after his infamous speech in 2006 in Ószöd, when masses of opposition parties and protesters demanded his resignation. An entire Wikipedia page is now dedicated to excerpts from the profanity-laden speech he gave at the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) convention that spring, but the more notable ones include: “And meanwhile, by the way, we’ve done nothing for four years. Nothing.” and “I almost perished because I had to pretend for 18 months that we were governing. Instead, we lied morning, night, and evening.”
He was eventually replaced as prime minister by Gordon Bajnai in the spring of 2009. He has held the position of chairman of the Democratic Coalition he founded since 2011.
Meanwhile, just a few days ago, one of the founders of the liberal Momentum party, Anna Orosz, resigned from her parliamentary mandate and will not be running in the 2026 elections. Posting on Facebook, she said: “The Orbán regime’s response to my standing up for our democratic rights and for people attacked by the authorities is to twist my arms and subject me to action.”
“Although Fidesz did everything it could to empty the institution of parliament, my political circle and I obviously share responsibility for the way things turned out. I did not do many things well, I was often unable to forge a majority behind good causes, and I was often not tactical or efficient enough.”
Five Momentum MPs (Orosz was not among them) and Ákos Hadházy were banned from parliament for weeks last week and had their salaries revoked for four and six months, respectively, for protesting with smoke candles in the chamber against the amendment to the assembly law (which would allow for the banning of Pride). The faction announced that the other party MPs will not participate in parliamentary work during the ban.
In 2022, Orosz won the seat as the joint candidate of the opposition from KDNP faction leader István Simicskó in Budapest’s 2nd constituency.
In her post, she says she is certain that “the intention to make a change, to improve our common affairs, has been in me throughout this time. For me, the work of a representative is a service, not an average job. It is a huge honor, but also a responsibility. Since 2019, I have considered it my duty to work to the best of my ability in the interests of the people of Újbuda and Hungarians. I feel that I no longer have the opportunity to do this as a member of parliament. The system twists my arms, both literally and figuratively, if I try to do something in the interests of the voters.”
Orosz is convinced she will earn the voters’ trust by realizing that she is only getting in the way of meaningful change if she remains in this situation.
“I see child protection as our most important common cause. Nothing is more indicative of the state of our society than how we treat the most vulnerable children. I am trying to find a way to continue the work I have started, in which many child protection actors have helped me, for which I am very grateful,” she wrote.
Although Orosz’s party colleague Miklós Hajnal did not resign, he announced at the end of March that he would not run again in Hegyvidék in 2026, where Péter Magyar plans to run.
Just yesterday, the original face and leader of Momentum, as well as former prime ministerial candidate, András Fekete-Győr, told Klubrádió that Momentum cannot stand in the way of a change of government, which is why he has initiated a delegate meeting where they will vote on whether the party should run in the 2026 parliamentary elections. He also said that there are many within the party who support this initiative, but the membership is divided on the issue. He also does not rule out a party split if they cannot reach a common denominator.
Fekete-Győr sees that Momentum voters want regime change at all costs, and he understands this. According to him, Momentum currently has 2-3 percent, and as much as 4 percent support in some places, so there is a stake in what Momentum does. Specifically, the politician said it can be a shaper of regime change.
“The question is whether we want to be part of the solution or the problem. If we run and take away those 2-3 percent from the rural voters, or even 4-5-6 in Budapest, that would be fatal. That would be four more years of corruption, four more years of hatred, four more years of poverty. If we want to look in the mirror after 2026, we must now take one step back so that Hungary can take two steps forward, this is the only correct answer,” said András Fekete-Győr.
Fekete-Győr also spoke about the other’s proposal to create a 500 million forint regime change fund from their parliamentary support, which should be used for three purposes. One is to support anti-regime demonstrations, demonstrations, and movements, the other is to support the local press critical of the government, and the third is to help those politically persecuted by the Orbán regime.
Fekete-Győr, who was the party’s president between 2016 and 2021, said that Momentum and similar, honest, fair movements and parties will be needed after 2026, adding that parliamentary seats and positions are not prerequisites for politics. When Momentum was not a parliamentary party, the party still had 5-7-800 thousand voters, Klubrádió explained, saying “it was an unavoidable, decisive force.”
“This can be done outside of parliament, but now we are living in an extraordinary situation, an extraordinary situation, it requires extraordinary solutions,” Fekete-Győr told them.
Dávid Bedő, the leader of the Momentum faction, has said that he expects Momentum to be out of parliament after 2026 and that he will not be an MP either.
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