Albert Takács
"I was always a good student," says the 52-year-old freshly appointed minister, a constitutional lawyer by training.
That he was good at pleasing others is shown by the way the only child, despite always dreaming of becoming a doctor, nonetheless chose to follow his father into law after graduating from a Catholic high school in Kecskemet. He clearly was a good student at Szeged University, winning a scholarship to study in Krasnodar in the Soviet Union. He began working at the Academy's Institute of State and Legal Science in 1979, before landing a teaching post in Miskolc a year later. All this while completing a degree in sociology. He then returned to the Institute, moving to the Council of Ministers in 1986 to work on the reform programme. At the time of the regime change, the full-time professor was teaching at the Budapest University of Economic Science and State Administration, becoming elected a Candidate of the Academy in 1993. He served as parliamentary commissioner for citizen rights and as deputy ombudsman. In June 2001 he became general deputy before the prime minister raised appointed him minister.
You are known for your sharp differences of opinion with Laszlo Solyom, the president. You have criticised some of his rulings as president of the constitutional court, while he refused to nominate you for ombudsman recently. People familiar with your disagreements were curious to see what would happen when he handed over your letter of appointment. Was it hard to shake hands?
Not at all. We've known each other since 1969. We worked together at the Legal Institute and we attended Frankfurt University at the same time. We had good personal relations at the time, and I have learned much from his work on civil law.
The president must have had similar thoughts...
I can't speak for him, but I'd be glad if my books or studied received the kind of critical attention I gave his works.
How relaxed?! We were struck by the pictures released of you once the news of your appointment came out. We wonder if your wife asked you to change your style? Or is there a new love in your life?
You're clearly men of the world, because it's true that my family told me my years-old hairstyle was getting tired. In any case, this is my first and only marriage.
But your relationship with the police is new. And they are in constant trouble with civil society organisations. Now the have a boss who at least physically resembles an underground minister of culture. Or maybe your new hairstyle tells us you're taking it all back?
Maybe one day I'll wake up with no desire to comb and wash. But I don't think my physical appearance is that important. The musician Tamas Somlo reminded me recently that he has great hair and even rides a motorbike. Maybe that'll be my next thing: a motorbike. That's my real dream at the moment.
We can hardly wait to see what kind of energies you devote to that. Wasn't it better being an armchair academic with no responsibilities than entering the frontline of politics?
It wasn't easy at the Institute with Tamas Sarkozy and Gyula Eorsi constantly testing our knowledge of civil law and with Andras Sajo checking up on whether we were reading legal theory - but the most recent period of my life was pleasant. We spent the whole day there, morning till night, and we had time to talk. We inspired each other: how could I know the constitution of only 24 countries when my office mate knew 32?
And just look where it took you! How did you get going on your career without being a member of the Party?
I was a member for a while, but only for a year before the regime change. I was there at the party congress where the changes took place in 1989. I just saw a photograph - I'm visible on it.
It's good that you mention it, because somebody will dig it up soon enough. But what led you to join the party at the last minute, just like Janos Martonyi, who is now on the Right.
I wasn't obliged to join, but certain benefits were only accessible if you were a member of that forum. That's when the reform circles began. My most important public role was at that congress when there was a spirited debate over whether the party should stand for a social market economy. Many were outraged, but I pointed out that the first paragraph of the German constitution commits the country to precisely that economic mechanism. I persuaded everybody as well.
You've worked as a lawyer since. Have there been any important, memorable cases?
I took part in some significant trials. The matter at hand was whether you had to pay a supplementary fee if as a tenant you placed an exhibition cabinet on a common wall in a jointly owned block of flats. Of course, I represented my client in the appropriate way, wearing my gown.
You're cautious, then. Beyond that, people say you are always very elegant. How many suits did you try on before your swearing in ceremony?
Lots. You can easily check, because three years ago Elite magazine chose me as one of the country's 10 most elegant men.
But you still buy new clothes?
New dinner jackets, certainly. When I last put it on, it was getting a bit ragged.
At least you were never caught on camera with a hole in your sock like Paul Wolfowitz. That led to his downfall. But you must need to look good in office: as everyone knows, you are often spoken of as a candidate for constitutional court judge, for ombudsman, and now you've been nominated as minister. Let's be honest: what would you have liked best?
I'll admit that I'd most like to have been a constitutional court judge. I like analysing things, sitting down in my office in the morning, and reviewing the facts. I knew in advance that the president wouldn't nominate me as ombudsman, and I was also forewarned about being appointed minister. If they had come at the same time, I'd have had to think about it. But I'm very pleased to be a minister.
ANDRÁS LINDNER - ZOLTÁN HORVÁTH
Book of the ex-cultural minister
Love him or hate him, like or dislike what he did as Minister for Culture, but there was no denying it that he was a scholar with outstanding powers of analysis. When he joined the Gyurcsany government, I can hardly have been the only one who dared to hope that he might serve as an intellectual Trojan Horse among all the politicians and party bureaucrats. But he, too, turned into a politician, seeming to lose his powers of self-criticism as he settled into his gilded ministerial chair.
Old elites in young democracies
The title of the historian Hans-Joachim Veen's speech to the 20th Century Institute said it all. As the professor of comparative government at the University of Trier said, in many places a new generation of the old elites came to power, while elsewhere the secret services provided the successors.
Night of the long knives for law and order
Justice and police minister Jozsef Petretei is on the way out. Apart from him, Laszlo Bene, Peter Gergenyi and Jozsef Dobozi all fell victim to Ferenc Gyurcsany's drastic reshuffle. The prime minister said the police was in need of fundamental reform. Allegations of police brutality had been the last straw, the prime minister said.
Politics and the security services
Security experts believe the National Security Office (NBH) could end up sharing the police forces' fate.
The Fidesz congress
The EU needs to take a common position on strategic questions - and the Hungarian government has its part to play in this, according to Wilfried Martens, the president of the European People's Party, giving the opening speech to Fidesz's 22nd party congress. The party's nominees for vice-president gave their hustings speeches, and delegates unanimously welcomed Jozsef Petretei's departure.
Eva Beleznay
Eva Beleznay, 44, has finally been confirmed in her post as chief architect of Budapest. Beleznay's family has not followed a straight path to success. A noble ancestor once gambled away the vast Beleznay fortune, leaving her grandfather to eke out a living as a master carpenter while raising his son to become a university professor of physics.
Fidesz, Belvaros, Sarkozy
"Jesuit, pitbull, arrogant," - just a few of the terms of abuse that have been heaped on Antal Rogan in the past. But no longer. Following last year's parliamentary elections, he claims to have left the big political stage. Since becoming mayor of Budapest's fifth district he has been talking about the pensioners of his borough. He wants Fidesz to renew itself, he's doing deals with city mayor Gabor Demsky, and he continues to polish his image. His role model - unsurprisingly - is Sarkozy.
The price of lying
The lies and unspoken truths we were treated to during the election campaign have done more damage than even I imagined when last March I asked the parties to tell the truth, because otherwise they would be unable to govern. The price that has been paid is not just the general disgust with the political elites, and it is not just about the loss of confidence in the reform process. It is about a loss of the belief that there is a point to democratic politics. Anything must be better than a market economy and representative democracy!
