“He was the most contradictory and talented person. A great man has passed away,” former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany wrote on his Facebook page.

Peter Boross, prime minister in the centre-right cabinet of the Democratic Forum in 1993-94, said “on some questions we were able to co-operate well; we fully agreed that OTP should not be transferred to foreign ownership, Horn made a promise at the change of government and honoured it,” he recalled.

Socialist national council president Laszlo Botka said Hungary has lost a genuine statesman who did much for Hungarian democracy and to help Hungary join NATO and the EU.

Party president Attila Mesterhazy said the modern Hungarian left has lost its most defining president and Hungary one of its most successful prime ministers.

Horn’s deputy prime minister Gabor Kuncze, leader of the Free Democrats in 1994-98, praised Horn as the most successful politician of the past 23 years, as his decisions had put the economy on a sustainable economic growth path.

Horn was one of the most significant personalities in Hungary following the change of regime and is one of few politicians of the era whose name will live on in Hungarian history, LMP co-president Andras Schiffer said.

Former National Bank governor Gyorgy Suranyi told Nepszabadsag that Horn was one of the most professional figures in the Hungarian political elite following the change of regime, “who was able to set aside his personal feelings in order to serve Hungary”.

Horn was a great European whose courageous deeds as foreign minister will never be forgotten by Germans, in the view of German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.

He said that in August, 1989 “Horn literally cut in two the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe for 40 years” and “definitively earned himself a place in the history books” not much later when he announced that Hungary would allow thousands of East German citizens to travel to the West.

A candlelight remembrance was held outside the Socialist Party headquarters on Jokai utca in the Sixth District Wednesday night.

Source: Hungary Around the Clock

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