President Ader greets speaker of Hungary’s first post-communist parliament on 90th birthday

Budapest, August 4 (MTI) – President Janos Ader has greeted Gyorgy Szabad, speaker of Hungary’s first freely elected parliament, on his 90th birthday.

In a letter, posted on the website of the president’s office, Ader praised Szabad for his work as a historian and university professor, and then as speaker of Hungary’s multi-party parliament from 1990 to 1994.

The broader public could get to know Szabad first in 1989, as one of the most qualified and most consistent politicians taking part in the opposition roundtable talks that paved the way for democratic transition, he said.

“We could learn from you that dismantling dictatorship was not an opportunity offered by an outstanding moment, but a task demanded by Hungarian history,” the president said.

As House speaker, Szabad worked to lace the periods of Hungary’s fights for independence and modernisation by the power of the mind and morals, Ader said.

The president thanked Szabad for all he had done for democracy in Hungary.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters