1933- . Hungarian socialist politician,
presidential candidate for the Hungarian
Socialist Party from 1989. Influential in the
democratization of Hungary 1988-89, he was
rejected by the electorate in the
parliamentary elections of Mar 1990, coming a
poor third in his constituency. Pozsgay
joined the ruling Hungarian Socialist
Workers' Party (HSWP) 1950 and was a lecturer
in Marxism-Leninism and an ideology chief in
Bacs county 1957-70. He was minister of
education and culture from 1976 before
becoming head of the Patriotic People's Front
umbrella organization 1982. Noted for his
reformist social-democratic instincts, he was
brought into the HSWP politburo in 1988 as a
move towards political pluralism began.
Having publicly declared that `communism does
not work', he helped remould the HSWP into
the new Hungarian Socialist Party 1989 and
was selected as its candidate for the
presidency.