Sólyom Elected President in Landslide of Recriminations

Former chief justice of the Constitution Court László Sólyom (left) was elected the third president of Hungary's post-Communist era Tuesday afternoon amid a hailstorm of inter and intra-party squabbling. Nominated by the country's center-right opposition, Sólyom won the votes of 185 of the country's 386 MPs, narrowly edging out the government's candidate, MP Katalin Szili (right), who received 182 votes. The stunning upset is expected to wreak havoc within the country's fragile and embattled Socialist-Liberal government, and offer a major boost to the election hopes of opposition leader Viktor Orbán (center, shaking hands with the newly-anointed államfő). Meanwhile, the bitching and finger-pointing by both winners and losers was even worse than anticipated, with some on each side claming not only foul play but outright fraud.

• According to a late report on portal Index.hu, Fidesz Parliamentary faction leader János Áder said the third round was "corrupted," because he had heard "in the corridor" of Parliament that three MPs from the center-right Hungarian Democratic Forum had agreed to vote for Szili in exchange for cash. The report named Miklós Csapody, Károly Herényi and Péter Karsai as those alleged to have been "bought" by the Socialist Party (MSZP) for payments of "more than Ft 10 million" (or roughly €40,000). The three MPs deny the allegations.

• In a separate report by Index, it was revealed that after the second, inconclusive round of voting Tuesday morning, MSZP leaders asked for a "special meeting" to address charges of improprieties. Their complaint was that members of the so-called Nemzeti Fórum (National Fórum) who had voted for Sólyom violated the constitution by showing their supposedly secret ballots to the press. After the meeting - which caused the announcement of the results of the second round to be late - it was decided that during the third round, cameras and video cameras would be barred from the chamber.

• Finally, MDF leader Ibolya Dávid is said to have nearly fainted just before the second round of voting. Other MPs helped her up. According to a third election day report on Index, Dávid has been suffering from low blood pressure, and a hectic round of pre-election TV interviews. Dávid recovered, and said that she's fine.