Ferenc Gyurcsany vowed on Tuesday to use whatever means are necessary to restore order following violent protests demanding his ouster that left 150 people injured.
BUDAPEST: Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany vowed on Tuesday to use whatever means are necessary to restore order following violent protests demanding his ouster that left 150 people injured.
Gyurscany said he had told police "to use all means to restore order", the MTI national press agency quoted him as saying. The socialist leader said the right to freedom of expression did not extend to resorting to violence and called on "all political forces" to refrain from supporting the demonstrations.
Demonstrators went on the rampage early Tuesday to call for Gyurcsany's resignation over his admission that he had lied to voters to win re-election in April.
Police, using teargas and water cannon, managed to empty the square at around 4:00 am, leaving burnt-out cars, ripped-up benches and overturned rubbish bins.
Emergency services said more than 150 people, most of them policemen, were injured in the clashes between security forces and protesters, the most serious unrest in the country since the fall of communism.
"Taking to the streets: it is not a solution, but a source of conflicts and of crisis," said Gyurcsany.
"Our duty is to ease this conflict and prevent a crisis."
Hungarian public radio at the weekend broadcast a closed-door discussion between Gyurcsany and his party's deputies last May in which he said candidly that the government has accomplished nothing but "rubbish" and "lied all along for the past 18 months -- two years."
The 44-year-old prime minister admitted Sunday that the tape-recording -- from an undisclosed source -- was authentic.
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