Hungary's Socialist-led coalition wins historic re-election

BUDAPEST (AFP) — Hungary's Socialist-led ruling coalition scored an historic victory in general elections, becoming the country's first government to retain power since the demise of communism in 1989.

"We won," Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany told a cheering crowd at his party headquarters after results that gave his coalition 210 seats in the 386-member parliament, up from its previous total of 198.

Gyurscsany echoed former US president John F. Kennedy in his victory speech, saying: "For a long time we asked the question 'what can I get from the nation?' Today we know that we have to ask at least as strongly and unambiguously 'what we can give to this nation?'"

Hungary, for years a post-communist economic success story, is now plagued by a soaring budget deficit.

"This is the first time in Hungary that the party which promised the most to voters did not win, that a programme of modernization triumphed," political analyst Krisztian Szabados told AFP.