Gábor Leel-Őssy, a former member of DK, stated in the program 48 minutes that the reason the party does not have a new president is because they are unable to produce the next generations, and that political organization is not a party, but a sect.
Ferenc Gyurcsány is already a caricature of himself and should resign from the position of party president - emphasized Gábor Leel-Őssy, the former chairman of the Gyula electoral district of the Democratic Coalition (DK) in the M1 current affairs channel's news program 48 Minutes on Thursday evening. Gábor Leel-Őssy - who was legally expelled from the party by the Democratic Coalition this week - said that there was a political rift between Ferenc Gyurcsány and Klára Dobrev. He put it like this, "the president had a hard time bearing the tipping of the balance of power within the house". He added that the best chance for the party in the 2022 parliamentary elections would have been if Klára Dobrev took control of the DK.
When asked why the party does not have a new president, he answered that it is not able to produce the next generations, and that a political organization that is not able to do this is not a party, but a sect, and DK has become "sectarian".
In his opinion, there is no realistic chance that Ferenc Gyurcsány will not be the president of the party from 2025 as well. He said that DK no longer cares about its voters, but about the party itself, and there is a struggle for the 3-6 seats that can still be won in the parliament, and everything revolves around that.
He said that already in the fall of 2022, he invited the leading politicians of the party to a conversation to explain the problems of the leaders of the county organizations and that things are going in the wrong direction in the DK. He emphasized: no changes had taken place, and Ferenc Gyurcsány visited Gyula in January 2023, where he was confronted with these things. The politician expelled from the DK also mentioned the concerns of the introduction of the regional director system, which he also indicated to the party president. He said that a director was appointed with whom they could not cooperate in the county.
Ferenc Gyurcsány promised that he would change this and asked them to "remain calm" , because the directors' contract runs until then, he explained. He added that Tibor Dancsó, a politician from the DK of Békéscsaba, inquired at the party headquarters, to which he received the answer from the president that everything would remain like this until the elections. He explained that because of this the party's politicians returned the mandates in Békés County and felt cheated.
The presenter quoted the party's announcement that "the DK expelled Gábor Leel-Őssy from the party in the first instance, because the politician's behavior seriously violated the party's policy, operating principles, and norms", and then asked how he had violated these, to which Leel-Őssy responded. Gábor answered that with the truth.
When asked what was more attractive to the voters in the Tisza than in the DK in this year's elections, he answered that the voters were bored with the DK and "they were absolutely right" . Gábor Leel-Őssy called what the party is moving towards hopeless. He said that in the 2026 elections, the driving force will no longer be the party program, but who will have a better chance of changing the system.
The presenter explained: the leaders of the party were also invited, but they did not receive a response to the inquiry.
The guests of the second half of the program were economist Péter Ákos Bod, former president of the central bank, and Olivér Hortay, head of climate and energy policy at Századvég, who spoke about the state of the European and Hungarian economies, as well as the government's new economic action plan.
According to Ákos Péter Bod, from the quarterly GDP data published by the Central Statistical Office (KSH), it was known that "it will not be pretty" because the second quarter was also "weak" and brought down the production level. As he said, there is a problem with the economy as a whole, this is projected for the whole year and the question is whether the economic performance will be one percent or less.
Olivér Hortay spoke about the fact that there are "very serious structural defects" in the European industry, and this is also indicated by reports published in the past period. Today, for example, a European industrial company has to pay two to three times as much for a unit of electricity and four to five times as much for gas as an American, he added.
Regarding economic neutrality, Ákos Péter Bod said that there is no such thing in his "economic dictionary", for example a country can specialize, choose an area and adapt to it or diversify. According to him, Hungary's economic exposure is "very large" in the automotive industry, and although as industry minister he was proud of the fact that he managed to bring German, American and Japanese industrial companies and car factories to the country, twenty or thirty years later he already felt that the industrial dependence that had developed was excessive.
Olivér Hortay talked about how diversification in the current situation is primarily a defensive strategy, it seems that the European economy is in a difficult situation, it is sideways.
If Hungary "cherishes" higher growth ambitions, then in the current state it is worthwhile and expedient to diversify
he added.
In relation to the government's new action plan, the former central bank governor stated that it is "very good" that the government valorizes the tax allowance for families after children and that there is a point in which he thinks correction is necessary. Ákos Péter Bod also spoke about how important it is to develop the Hungarian economy and society, and that the exact growth of GDP next year "will be left to the statisticians".
Olivér Hortay said in this regard that he thinks the new action plan can stimulate the Hungarian economy. He sees that the "control towers" of the Hungarian economic strategy are basically in order and that in the future there will be two defining economic questions: how the export markets will develop and when and how quickly the engine of the Hungarian economy can be started.
According to him, the government is doing what it can in both areas, with regard to export markets, it is trying to open up to other markets, and it is also trying to start the engine of the Hungarian economy with the twenty-one-point action plan.
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The full broadcast of the program entitled 48 minutes can be followed on Thursdays from 20:35 both on M1 and on hirado.hu. Previous broadcasts can be viewed again on hirado.hu's website , Facebook page , and YouTube channel .
Featured image: Gábor Leel-Őssy / Photo: Gyula Péter Horváth