HUNGARY's Free Democrats have called for an end to the minority Socialist administration and its replacement by a “government of experts”, but analysts say their move is a bluff and do not expect early elections. Support from the liberal Free Democrats is vital to passing the 2009 budget on which parliament is expected to vote by the end of the year. But party leader Gabor Fodor said on Tuesday that last week's 300 billion forint ($1.85 billion) tax cut proposal by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany was insufficient, not credible and would hurt the economy. In place of Gyurcsany - who would probably be forced to resign if he lost the budget vote - he said his party would prefer President Laszlo Solyom to invite an outside expert to form a new government instead of calling for early elections. Analysts said the Free Democrats, languishing at just over 1 percent in opinion polls, stand to benefit from the intense media attention surrounding the debate but are unlikely to risk bringing down the government as an early election would mean political suicide. “The Free Democrats cannot vote for the budget but they can let it slip through with a few dissenters or a few absentees and still save face,” political analyst Zoltan Kiszelly said. The Socialists, who ruled in coalition with the Free Democrats until April, are five votes short of a majority and need to get just a handful of liberals to vote with them or stay away from the vote to pass the budget. Some Free Democrat support is possible as the liberals remain engulfed in internal fighting. “The Free Democrats are divided and Gyurcsany will try to drive a wedge between the two sides,” Orsolya Szomszed at Vision Consulting said. “With an early election, the Free Democrats would wipe themselves out of Hungarian politics.” If elections were held today, all polls show that the conservative Fidesz party would win an outright majority as they command twice as much support as the Socialists. The next election is due in 2010. The Free Democrats, Fidesz and the conservative Democratic Forum could theoretically form a coalition in the current parliament. But given long-standing hostility between the three, analysts said this was even more unlikely than early elections. Gyurcsany at risk Replacing Gyurcsany with a candidate acceptable to the Free Democrats was also an option but analysts said the chances for such a move remained relatively modest. “Gyurcsany's position is so solid within the party that he determines his own future and will stay as long as he sees a realistic chance to push through his agenda,” Szomszed said. “If he resigns, he will do it on his own terms. Financial markets have failed to react to Hungary's political turmoil as they still see only a modest chance that Gyurcsany will be ousted. If he did go, markets are seen reacting negatively because of the risk that the budget position would worsen. Both the Socialists and the Free Democrats have struggled in opinion polls since raising taxes and cutting subsidies in 2006 to reduce a rising budget deficit. The other major challenge facing the government is boosting growth, which at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the second quarter was the slowest in the region. Analysts said the Free Democrats' best hope of getting above the 5 percent vote threshold needed to stay in parliament at the next election is to convey the image of a responsible party pushing for real policy change. “This is all tactics by the Free Democrats, it's the drum roll before the triple summersault in the circus,” analyst Andras Giro-Szasz said. “Gyurcsany wouldn't have said he will resign if the vote failed unless he had all the votes he needed in his pocket.” – Reuters __
