Opposition slam PM speech as "unrealistic" on country s performance

Budapest, February 22 (MTI) - Political analysts polled by MTI on Friday had mixed views regarding the prime minister s speech earlier in the day on the state of the country s economy.

Tamas Lanczi, analyst at think-tank Szazadveg, said Prime Minister Viktor Orban was confident and outlined a strategy change for the country.

Political Capital s lead analyst Attila Juhasz on the other hand said Orban s assessment was not much different from ones given in previous years, focussing on criticism of eight years of Socialist governance and painting a "pink vision of the future".

Lanczi said Orban practiced some self-criticism regarding the work of his cabinet, saying Hungary was "doing better but not good enough". He added that Orban confidently predicted economic growth for this year, which, before the elections in 2014, can be interpreted as an election promise.

Attila Juhasz, lead analyst at think-tank Political Capital said the prime minister s "light self-criticism" could be a signal that he was aware that neither economic data nor public sentiment appeared to underpin his optimisim about the government s successful performance. He said economic growth promised earlier had not arrived and the outlook for the future is bleak, although the government needs to target low-income earners and pensioners before the elections.

Hungary s opposition parties slammed the prime minister s state-of-the-nation speech delivered at Millenaris Hall on Friday as being at odds with reality.

Zsolt Torok, spokesman for the Socialist opposition, said "Hungarians deserved better governance" and that people were much worse off than before.

Gabor Vona, leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, said Fidesz was unable to find solutions to the everyday problems of residents.

He said Hungary s performance had not improved and the government s promises were "too long-term for people to understand what would happen to them the next day". He said the prime minister failed to address the issues of job creation and economic stimulus, law and order and the boosting of national culture and that these were needs only Jobbik had a programme to tackle.

The small opposition LMP party s parliamentary group leader Andras Schiffer said Hungary s dependence on other countries was stronger than ever, with record-high stocks of government securities in foreign hands last year, topped with another dollar-denominated bond issue just ten days ago. He added that public debt was rising despite the government tapping on private pension savings.

Schiffer said the government should abandon an economic policy built on "the marriage of foreign capital and cheap domestic unskilled labour".

The Dialogue for Hungary group, which is on its way to become a party and has been set up by former LMP members, said Orban only "painted a vague vision about the future several decades ahead" and failed to present concrete proposals for solving problems.

Csaba Molnar, deputy leader of the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition, said Prime Minister Viktor Orban was "talking about his dreams" when he said Hungary was doing better than before. He branded the speech as "one of the poorest intellectually" so far and cited recent data from the European Commission which warned that Hungary s budget deficit would be higher than expected while economic recession remained.

Together 2014, an electoral movement, said in a statement that Orban s speech suggested Hungary was going in the right direction but this is far from the truth. Democracy has been crippled, the economy destroyed, jobs lost by the tens of thousands and EU funding waned, all of which has triggered half a million young people leaving the country, the statement said.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Hungary s budget deficit would stay below 3 percent in 2013 and that Hungary was performing better than before and was more successful in tackling the crisis than most European countries.