IPAWorld News
Gábor Demszky
Mayor of Budapest, Hungary
Gábor Demszky was born in 1952. He did his final examination in Kaffka Margit Secondary School in 1970, and then he became student of the law Faculty of ELTE. In 1972, due to a protest organized by a left wing student association, he was excluded from the University for a year. He was accused of having taken part in a political movement. He then worked as a taxi driver, ever since he has a good knowledge of the streets of Budapest.
In 1976, he gained a diploma at the Law Faculty and in 1981 he gained another diploma at the Faculty of Sociology. In 1988 he was a funding member of the Network of free Initiatives, and later the Alliance of Free Democrats. In 1990 he was elected the representative of the VII. District at the parliamentary elections, he became the chair of the National Security Committee of the Parliament and member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
He was the leader of the party list at the municipal elections in 1990. He was elected the Mayor of Budapest on the 31 October 1990, at the statutory meeting of the General Assembly of Budapest. Since then he was re-elected four times (in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006) and he has been the Mayor of Budapest for 19 years.