Tibor Draskovics. In a new position.

Stumpf, who is president of the Turn-of-the-Century foundation, said Draskovics had failed to carry out his task of reforming central and local government. His team had been slow to draft new laws, it had been poor at communicating, and it had failed to explain why no impact studies had been carried out for certain laws, Stumpf said. He believes the reshuffle on Tuesday heralded a much deeper reshuffle that Ferenc Gyurcsany is preparing, the result of a compromise with Peter Kiss, the chancery minister. Tibor Draskovics, Zoltan J Gal and Peter Kiss did not always get on in the PM's office, which was having a damaging effect on the department's performance, Stumpf said.

Albert Takacs's dismissal reflected the PM's dissatisfaction with his work, Stumpf said. The Ministry for Justice and Public Order had been incapable of coordinating the work of drafting new laws, and problems had been allowed to mount up. It was necessary to pin the blame on somebody. "It's astonishing that Tibor Draskovics should be his successor, since his performance has not been a success. At least he has experience in driving forward the legislation-drafting process. It's possible that he's expected to speed up the background research," Stumpf said.