This book is a summary and reflection of the Former Hungarian Prime Minister Medgyessy Peter's official career, written by Medgyessy himself. The author wrote in the preamble: "Anyway, I have always been in the political field." The book unfolds the political career of Medgyessy as a leftist with a liberal thinking through questions and answers, and reflects the historical changes of Hungarian politics and economics through memories of his personal experience.
The author started with his own "root", recalling the sufferings of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural family for living and multiplying. Next, the author talked about the development of his official career, as well as how his behavior and thinking affected the political and economic environment of the time. The road to reform was inevitably full of ups and downs. In this process, people also deepened their understandings of the reform. The author finally recognized that "to develop a market economy, we must pursue privatization", and the implementation of partial privatization is the prerequisite for developing a market economy.
Economic system reform promotes political system changes. As a left-wing politician actively promoting the reform, the author found it hard to predict his own political future after political system changes, so he chose to stay away from politics.
After departure from politics, the author stepped into the banking industry on the strength of his financial knowledge and unique macro-economic perspective, beginning to meet the considerable "challenge" of his life. He studied economy operation from an enterprise point of view, and observed economy trend away from the political world. The experience of this stage had great impact on his style of governance since his ruling in 2002. On the basis of understanding and reflecting on reality, the author decided to return to the political field. He joined the Horn administration, vigorously promoted the reform, thoroughly studied the pension insurance system reform, presented a sharp view of corruption, and conducted the in-depth analysis of the causes of corruption and its relation with political parties.
In 2002, Medgyessy become a candidate for prime minister and won the election. As a Prime Minister outside the parties, Medgyessy considered that his neutrality provided him with both advantages and disadvantages. During the election campaign, he set up a young team focusing on future construction and common action. The book details the process of the national campaign tour, reviews and evaluates the economic policies adopted by the author in the initial stage of his administration, the power struggle within the government in the mid-stage of his administration, the changes of political situation and the transfer of power in the later stage of his administration.
The book also discusses how Hungary, as a small European country, should think about world politics at a strategic level, and how the author, as a small country’s former prime minister, looks at the world politics. The author believes that small countries should also have world strategy and vision, and should adhere to the principle of “union, openness, learning and development.”
The book tells the rich life experience of a famous political man in the plain language. The author has always looked upon the domestic political situation and economic & social development situation with a very pragmatic eye, and frankly expressed his views on his official career and the political environment. At the same time, he addressed a series of major international issues, such as how to position a small country in the world and how to look on European unification. (By Zhang Shuangzi) |
