A lesson from Budapest

"We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening," said Hungarian Socialist Leader Ferenc Gyurcsany of the method by which they won last year's Hungarian election, a comment which has ignited Hungarian anger and kicked off street rioting not seen since the fall of communism in Hungary sixteen years ago:

Hungary PM says "we lied" to win election - Reuters Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted to a Socialist Party meeting in May his government had lied about its record to win April's election and said it had done nothing in four years but hold on to power.
True lies: Hungarian leader blurts out the truth on the economy - Times Online The riots, the worst since the end of communism, were ostensibly sparked by the publication of a leaked tape on Sunday in which Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Prime Minister, was heard saying that he and his Socialist party had lied for four years about Hungary’s budget in order to win a general election in April.

There's a lesson here for politicians everywhere, and given the lying and corruption now apparent in our most recent election in New Zealand, a particularly relevant lesson for our own political leaders here.

It seems to me that NZ's ruling party would be fooligh to discount the anger that New Zealanders feel at our own stolen election, simply because New Zealanders express their outrage in a less demonstrative way than do Hungarians. To use Helen Clark's own term, outside the 'Beltway' anger is mounting. She ignores that anger at her peril.

UPDATE: The Times has extracts of the Hungarian PM's lying tape. You could all too easily confuse it with something produced rather closer to home. Samples:

"Obviously we lied throughout the past one and a half, two years. It was completely obvious that what we said was not true."

"Meanwhile, we have done nothing for four years. You cannot tell me of any significant government measure we could be proud of... If we need to give an account to the country what we have done for four years, what will we say?"

"I almost died of having to pretend for the past year that we were actually governing. Instead we lied day, night and evening."

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