POLITICS, POST-REVOLUTION

On December 26 Károly Király was called to Bucharest to be appointed National Vice-President of the National Salvation Front. He had discussed with András Sütő which Hungarian should deputize for him as the leading Hungarian office-holder at the county level. Unfortunately, they thought of me. They called me to Király’s office and told me of the role which they intended for me.

I replied that I did not want to cease my solicitor’s work. To this Sütő and Király answered that at such times I had no right to stand aside, the less so since undertaking the defence of László Tőkés had made me an authoritative person in the eyes of both the Hungarians and Romanians.

Király was in a great hurry and entrusted me to Sütő, who invited me to his home and convinced me to accept this extremely important office. I said I would accept the task until national elections could be held [they were set for May] and after that I would return to my solicitor’s office.

The Mureş County Council of the National Salvation Front should have been elected on the previous day, December 25. But on this occasion Nistor Man tried to have elected a council which did not reflect the real composition of the nationalities and which would have included some servants of the old regime. Károly Király responded with a masterly stroke: He left the meeting and had a communiqué published which said that objections had been raised in connection with certain members of the county, municipal, town and district councils, and consequently their positions would be discussed in those working communities to which they belonged.

If they were voted down at their place of work, they could not become members of the council, which it was now planned, should be elected at a meeting on January 2.

At this meeting, after a rather harsh political confrontation, the Mureş County Council of the National Salvation Front was elected. The council elected the executive committee. This was:

Károly Király, (H) president,

Ion Scrieciu, (R) reserve army general, first vice president,

Valer Galea, (R) engineer, vice-president,

Myself (Előd Kincses), (H) solicitor, vice-president,

Dan-Eugen Băculea, (R) public notary, secretary.

An interesting detail: the uncontested leader of the county, Károly Király, did not want Béla 3 in the Mureş County NSF, claiming he was a careerist. In the end, at the election meeting of January 2, 1990 of the Mureş County National Salvation Front, the writer András Sütő, who had been proposed by Király to represent the Writers’ Union, renounced his mandate in favour of Markó, who managed to join the NSF, becoming a career-politician. First vice-president Ion Scrieciu admitted that Ion Iliescu had promoted Király to Bucharest to remove him from Târgu Mureş where with his prestige and political experience he could have achieved serious success in realising the objectives of the Hungarian minority.

Prior to the above County elections, and while Király was in Bucharest (December 27), the Târgu Mureş Town Council of the National Salvation Front was elected. The Romanian army engineer, Colonel Ioan Judea, became chairman, and the Romanian judge Ioan Sabău became secretary. Judea swiftly went on to become the vice-president of the Party of Romanian National Unity, the political wing of the Vatra Românească. Sabău became the vice-president of Vatra.