The news broke after a Facebook announcement made by DK MEP Klára Dobrev, according to news site Telex.
“Ferenc Gyurcsány has announced his decision to resign from the presidency of the DK, step down from his position as parliamentary group leader, relinquish his seat in the National Assembly, and withdraw from public life. He will not run in the elections,” Dobrev wrote, adding that the DK leadership has accepted his decision and that “Ferenc Gyurcsány will always enjoy the friendship, love, and respect of the entire DK community.”
According to Dobrev, the move was prompted by Gyurcsány’s desire to put an end to the Hungarian right’s recurring attempts to “shift blame for all their misdeeds through dishonest Gyurcsány-bashing.”
She said a new presidential election would be held in a few weeks, in which she would also run.
In the interim, executive vice president Csaba Molnár will lead the party.
Dobrev, who got married to Gyurcsány in 1995, also shared a personal announcement at the end of her post: “There’s a painful personal matter we would like to share here and now, for the first and last time. After many months of turmoil, attempts to replan, and countless late-night conversations, we have made perhaps the most difficult decision of our lives: we are getting divorced.”
Ferenc Gyurcsány was born in 1961. Before the regime change, he was active in the Young Communist League (KISZ). In 2002, he became Minister of Youth and Sports in the government of Péter Medgyessy, and in 2004, following Medgyessy’s resignation, he took over as PM. He successfully defeated Viktor Orbán in 2006, winning reelection.
However, not long after the election, the leaking of his controversial Őszöd speech and the wave of protests that followed severely damaged his political support. He resigned as prime minister in 2009 and was succeeded by Gordon Bajnai. In 2011, Gyurcsány left the Socialist Party and founded the Democratic Coalition, which has been present in the parliament ever since.
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