Ferenc Gyurcsány's speech in Balatonőszöd in May 2006
Ferenc Gyurcsány speaking at a party congress on 2 September 2006
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| Duration | 1 hour |
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| Date | May 26, 2006 |
| Location | Balatonőszöd, Hungary |
| Type | Speech |
The Őszöd speech (Hungarian: őszödi beszéd) was delivered by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány in Balatonőszöd in May 2006 to Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) members of the National Assembly of Hungary. This meeting was supposed to be confidential but the Prime Minister's speech was taped and Magyar Rádió (Hungarian Radio) began broadcasting it late afternoon on Sunday September 17, 2006.
The speech explicitly admitted the Socialist Party had lied to the electorate and that its coalition government had enacted no significant measures over its tenure.
It ignited mass protests around Hungary and rioting in Budapest and severely damaged public opinion of the Socialist Party, leading to the re-election of Viktor Orbán in the subsequent 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections.
Ferenc Gyurcsány's speech given in Balatonőszöd during May 2006 starts with an approximately one-hour-long overview of the first proposed steps of the new social-liberal government. English translation of the controversial (second) part of the speech:
If I am honest with you, I can say that we are full of doubts. That behind the self-assurance, there is torment and anguish. I know exactly that all that we are doing will not be perfect. That in a series of issues, not even that I have no clue what the sixth step is, but I don't even know the third. I know the first two. And we must, at the same time, try to take these issues forward, to maintain the cooperation and bona fide between us, to assure the support of the coalition partner [i.e. Alliance of Free Democrats - the Hungarian Liberal Party, (Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége, a Magyar Liberális Párt, abbreviation SZDSZ)], to prepare the managers and leading publicists of the most influential newspapers about what they can count on. To involve them in this process. Learn not to cry out in pain every moment, and keep moving forward.
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