Gábor Kuncze

Gábor Kuncze
Minister of the Interior of Hungary
In office 15 July 1994 – 6 July 1998
Preceded by	Imre Kónya
Succeeded by	Sándor Pintér
Personal details
Born	(1950-11-04) 4 November 1950 Pápa, Hungary
Political party	SZDSZ
Profession	politician

The native form of this personal name is Kuncze Gábor. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Gábor Kuncze (born November 4, 1950 in Pápa) is a Hungarian liberal politician, former chairman of the Hungarian Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ). He became anchorman at the radio channel Klubrádió in 2008 while he was still an SZDSZ member of Parliament. Later, in 2010, he also became a host for the television channel ATV. Kuncze was later dismissed from ATV's morning program, which was taken over by Egon Rónai.

Biography

Kuncze was born in Pápa in 1950. After graduating from the piarist grammar school in Kecskemét he studied geotechnical engineering in the Ybl Miklós Technical College in Budapest and graduated from there in 1974. Later he got a degree of Economics specialized in Industry Management and Organization. Kuncze is married to mathematics teacher Katalin Fellegi.

Political career

Kuncze joined the party in August 1992, two years after the first free and democratic parliamentary elections following the collapse of the Communist system. In November 1992 he was elected a member of the National Assembly and in October 1994 a member of the National Executive Committee of the party. From April 1997 until June 1998 he was the chairman of the Alliance of Free Democrats. He retired from his position following the party's relatively weak results on the 1998 parliamentary elections. However, he took over the liberal party again on July 1, 2001 and was reelected as party chairman in 2003 and 2005. In 2006 Kuncze announced not to run for the chair in the following year or any executive positions in the future.

Kuncze was a member of parliament since 1990. He was the leader of the Parliament group of the party from 1993 to 1994, and from 1994 until 1998 Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister. After 1998 - as one of the leading opposition politicians in the parliament - he heavily criticised the work of Orbán's government. He initiated the introduction of a two-level minimum salary system, but his proposal was not negotiated by the National Assembly - that time with a right-wing majority. He also heavily criticised the governing Fidesz for their decision to hold plenary sessions of the unicameral National Assembly only every third week.

In 2006 he called Fidesz parliamentarian Máriusz Révész, who was attacked and injured by police during the 2006 protests in Hungary "Marytirius". Révész had parliamentary immunity at the time and as such police had no right to use force against him.

In February 2009, Kuncze once again made a controverisal statement. In Klubrádió he was speaking with an advisor of Ferenc Gyurcsány, (the prime minister at the time), Tibor Dessewffy. In the program, while talking about the very low level of public mood (according to Kuncze, completely unjustified), recommended handing out cyanide tablets to the people who are feeling misareble.

Gábor Kuncze: (...) I know a great number of people who are living much much better than say ten, fifteen years ago, and they are in such a lethargy from this horrible country and this horrible situation that one would very much like to give cyanide tablets to them so they could get over their problems already. Of course this would not be a solution. Tibor Dessewffy: And this whole thing is a really great problem, since the middle class cannot understand that they are moving higher, just because there are still a very large group of people who are in really big trouble

— from the Klubrádió program

The Hungarian media authority, ORTT, have declined to investigate the matter. Kuncze later apologised for his remarks, saying they were ill-conceived.

External links

• Hungarian Parliament