Persona non grata?
It seems my attempt to use too many references and links in my blog post comment in a response to "A Hungarian wrestling champion: Dr. Péter Kende by S.K." resulted in the spam filter deleting my comment. Which is weird as they are allowing the spam viagra comment adverts to stay, but deleting mine. I also note my link using trackback is marked as 'spam' by them. It seems I can post a comment if I pretend to be someone else and hide my computer, going via Hokkaido etc... Which is all really silly. If I want to comment and engage in discussion I don't expect to have to use anything more than an average person would know how to.
Anyway, I thought, since I wrote the thing already I'd post it here. I'd welcome discussion, corrections, objections and reasoned debate.
This was my comment:
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@S.K.:I haven't read Kende Péter's latest book yet on the ongoing Kulcsár business ("Nesze neked, igazság! - A Kulcsár-ügy" published by Hibiszkusz Könyvkiadó, 2009), but I will be interested to see how balanced this is. Overall I would say he is pretty balanced, but he can't help himself but lean to the left a bit. Has he ravaged the MSZP or SZDSZ as much as they deserve and their electorate has? No, not yet. But maybe this is the book.
After all he will have lots to go on. Back in August 2005 HVG published lots of details from the central defendant Kulcsár's depositions on their website. They were sent the details anonymously and took a few days to think about the consequences, after which they went ahead - knowing that this would be uncomfortable reading for lots of politicians.
As the article in Origo ( http://www.origo.hu/itthon/20050805vilaghalon.html ) at the time stated, (paraphrasing) these details would make things difficult for a considerable number of well known people, MSZP politicians amongst them, who would be brought under suspicion ("Kulcsár vallomásaival számos ismert embert, (MSZP-s) politikust hozhat nehéz helyzetbe, több személyt a vallomásának köszönhetően már gyanúsítottként kezelnek.")
In particular there were details of million of forints often being sent through an acquaintance (Gyula) via taxi to Baja Ferenc (State Secretary, in charge of e-Gov in the Prime Minister's Office). Sometimes only a few million forints was sent, at other times, when the secretary himself went up to Kulcsár apartment, 30-50 million forints was taken. ("...számos alkalommal adott, vagy egy taxis ismerősével (a Gyula) küldött pénzt Baja Ferenc államtitkárnak, az MSZP volt pártigazgatójának. Volt, amikor csak kisebb összeget, néhány milló forintot küldött, de a vallomása szerint volt pálda arra is, amikor az államtitkár jött fel a lakására, hogy átvegyen tőle 30-50 millió forintot").
Lots of other MSZP people are implicated in the scandal (e.g. Puch László...).
Kulcsár's full depositions ("A Kulcsár-jegyzőkönyvek") can be found on the HVG website at: http://hvg.hu/itthon/20050805foszerk1.aspx
n.b. I did ask a question of your blogging companion ESBalogh on November 11th, but she neglected to reply to it. I wonder if you have any opinion on this, as it also relates to Kende Péter's statements and work:
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@esbalogh: As you believe Péter Kende to be "...in my opinion the best investigative journalist in Hungary", so you also agree with his views about corruption in MSZP and in particular the role of Gyurcsány and László Keller?
In an interview for Index he was asked which three people need to be cleaned from public life, he offer two József Torgyán, well we know his fate, and...
'...László Keller. It's insupportable that a person who was the Public Finance Minister placed three members of his own family into positions close to the party or those owned by the state. It is criminal that Gyurcsány never created a great stink out of this.' ("...Keller László. Tűrhetetlen, hogy az az ember, aki közpénzügyi államtitkár volt, a családja három tagját állami tulajdonú és pártközeli helyekre helyezze el. Bűn, hogy Gyurcsány nem csinált nagy ügyet ebből.") source: http://index.hu/kultur/eletmod/kende2/
Last time I looked he (Keller) was still doing rather well for himself as a protected inner member of the MSZP, working as a minister in the finance ministry.
http://www.parlament.hu/internet/plsql/ogy_kpv.kepv_adat?p_azon=k240
This after Gyurcsány's repeated fake attempts to clean up government.
I could go on, but I know you are not interested or listening. Thankfully the Hungarian people have had enough of these charlatans.
Posted by: Vándorló | November 11, 2009 at 08:32 AM
http://esbalogh.typepad.com/hungarianspectrum/2009/11/to-refresh-our-memories-the-prime-minister-of-hungary-19982002-and-tokaj.html
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