Hungary's ruling Socialist party elected Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany as their president on Saturday, closing ranks behind the embattled premier and his unpopular economic reforms. Gyurcsany, 45, was the only candidate for the top post and he won 89.15 percent of the vote at a party congress in the capital, Socialist spokesman Istvan Nyako said.
The overwhelming support for Gyurcsany averted the collapse of the government, as Gyurcsany earlier Saturday threatened to resign as prime minister if he did not win at least 75 percent of the vote.
Gyurcsany said he needed to know that the party was behind him and his unpopular economic reforms at a time when voter support for the Socialists is at its lowest point for a decade.
Since winning re-election last April, Gyurcsany and his party have seen their ratings plummet after the government backtracked on promises to cut taxes and passed severe austerity measures to tackle the public deficit, the highest in the European Union.
Tax hikes, cuts in subsidized household energy prices and the introduction of co-payments for doctor's visits have left the socialists with a voter support of only 17 percent.
The government has also faced street protests, including several days of violent riots after a tape was leaked in September in which Gyurcsany said he knowingly misled voters on the economy to win re-election.
The biggest opposition party, Fidesz, has been trying to rally popular support to force Gyurcsany's resignation and call early elections. Fidesz MPs walk out of parliament every time the prime minister takes the floor.
"Gyurcsany's election is a message to Fidesz that the Socialists are behind the prime minister and that they are not going to oust him," Bernadett Budai, a political analyst at the think tank Vision Consulting, told AFP.
Gyurcsany told his party Saturday that his reform policies, aimed at reining in a public deficit of nearly 10 percent of gross domestic product, were the only viable solution for the country's economic woes after years of loose government spending.
"Hungary must above all focus its energies on re-establishing budget equilibrium and use this to dynamise the economy, which will allow for the creation of a more just society. I cannot offer any alternatives," Gyurcsany said in a speech to party militants.
The only other solutions he said were "populism and national radicalism," as found "from Poland to the Balkans" and "advocated" by Fidesz.
Gyurcsany promised the Socialists that his economic reforms would bear fruit within two years, allowing his party to win back voters and triumph in the 2010 parliamentary elections.
Gyurcsany is no stranger to comebacks.
He took over as prime minister in September 2004 after the Socialists, trailing Fidesz at the time by double-digits in polls, ousted Gyurcsany's unpopular predecessor midway through the election cycle.
Gyurcsany was credited with turning around the rudderless Socialists and leading the party to a shock victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections.
Prior to entering politics, Gyurcsany made a fortune in the 1990s during the country's chaotic and corruption-riddled privatisation era. He was also a communist youth leader before the transition to democracy in 1989.
