Szili may have leaked Gyurcsány speech, FT says

Britain's Sunday Telegraph suggested that Speaker of Parliament Katalin Szili may have been the one who leaked a speech by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány to members of his party in which he admitted lying to the electorate about the economy prior to April elections. The leaked speech has triggered a series of demonstrations now in their eighth day along with several days of rioting and looting. The paper wrote that some pundits in Budapest think the prime minister himself may have done the leaking, in an effort to provoke public debate on his belt-tightening reform program, a program that has sparked a great deal of knee-jerk resistance. However, says the paper, a move like that would probably be too risky a strategy, even for someone who lists Peter Mandelson, the former chief ideologist of the British left wing reforms, among his friends. Political analysts at the Sunday Telegraph concur that the leak was far more likely to have been sprung by a rival within the party in an attempt to force the PM out of office. The paper picks Szili as a likely culprit, calling her ambitious, opposed to the PM's reforms and "yearning for his post." But, citing László Seres, editor of the Internet news page Hírszerző, it predicts that the party will leave Gyurcsány in place for a while, then dump him at mid-term, blaming him for the tax and price increases. (Mti)