Hungary’s parliament today elected Pal Schmitt as the new president, replacing Laszlo Solyom, whose five-year term ends in August.

HUNGARY’S new prime minister has said he would cut public wages, overhaul the tax system and ban mortgage lending in foreign currencies as he strove to reassure nervous investors he can contain the budget deficit.

Hungary’s centre-right Fidesz party, led by Viktor Orban, a former prime minister who promised to restore “law and order” and pull Hungary out of recession, won a two-thirds parliamentary majority, the National Election Office said.

Hungary’s parliament has approved a bill making Holocaust denial punishable by up to three years in prison, but the measure may be unconstitutional.

Conservatives scored victories in some of Europe’s largest economies as voters punished left-leaning parties in European parliament elections in France, Germany and other nations.

Police dispersed the last of the thousands of demonstrators who clashed with officers in Hungary’s capital Budapest during commemorations on the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule.

Hungarians went to the polls today in a run-off parliamentary election that could deliver a small majority to the governing coalition led by Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, which would make it the first post-communist administration to win re-election.

A short video showing Hungary’s prime minister impersonating Hugh Grant could boost his chances of winning April’s parliamentary elections, analysts said today.

Moving to end a political crisis with its government coalition partner, Hungary’s Socialist Party has announced that Prime Minister Medgyessy is no longer head of the government and that it plans to nominate his replacement next week.

Voters turned out in record numbers today in a second round of balloting for Hungary’s next government, with the opposition Socialists hoping to build on their narrow lead to defeat the ruling Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party.