Translated material
Lawyer becomes President of Hungary
As a result of the third round of voting held yesterday, Solyom, nominated by the conservative opposition, received the support of 185 deputies, and 182 people voted for his rival, Speaker of Parliament Katalin Sili, a candidate from the ruling Socialist Party (their leader, 44-year-old multimillionaire Ferenc Gyurcsany, heads the government). In the first round, when the support of two-thirds of deputies was required to elect the president, Solyom received only 13 votes, and Sili received 183.
But then the situation changed. The Free Democrats, partners of the Socialists in the ruling coalition, refused to support the candidacy of the speaker. They said that the president should be a person who is not bound by obligations to any of the political parties. In this sense, Shoyom is an ideal figure. He is one of the pioneers of democratic reforms in the country; back in 1987, he participated in the creation of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, a mass organization that actually led the country out of the Soviet bloc. Solyom promises to use his professional experience as a lawyer “to reconcile political forces” in Hungary.