RFE/RL NEWSLINE
Vol. 1, No. 25, 6 May1997

HUNGARY'S DEPUTIES DECLARE ASSETS. Some 350 out
of the country's 384 deputies have submitted statements
declaring assets held by themselves and their immediate
family members, Hungarian dailies report. As of today,
deputies who fail to submit declarations of their assets are
not allowed to vote in the legislature or draw their salaries
as deputies. Socialist deputies Lajos Varga and Laszlo Pal,
who is chairman of the board of the state oil and gas
company MOL Rt., are the only members of the parliament
who have so far decided to give up their seats in favor of
business interests. The Constitutional Court last week
interpreted the law on conflict of interests to include
politicians who took up business positions before 1994.
Under the earlier interpretation of the law, deputies who
held business positions before the last elections were
allowed to keep both posts.

HUNGARIAN PREMIER RESPONDS TO PARTY
DISSENTERS. Gyula Horn says that as long as he is prime
minister, he will "not support any changes in the
government's and the Socialist Party's policies," Hungarian
Radio and Budapest dailies report today. Horn was
responding to the Socialist Democratic Group, a faction of
the Socialist Party, which last week demanded his
replacement as chairman of the party (see RFE/RL
Newsline, 29 April 1997). He said the dissenting members
of the group differ from Smallholders' Party leader Joszef
Torgyan "only in style." Ivan Vitanyi, one of the group's
leaders, reiterated yesterday that the party's chances in
the next elections will improve only if it carries out
personnel changes, including at the top.

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