Hungarian Smallholders complain of Tony Blair "interference"

A major Hungarian opposition party, The Independent Smallholders'Party , has accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of interference in Hungarian domestic affairs, Hungarian radio said on Friday night.

"The party's national presidium objects to a sentence in the letter Tony Blair sent a couple of days ago in which the politician says he expects to welcome Gyula Horn as an ally at the NATO summit in 1999.

According to the FKGP, such remarks endanger the fairness of the elections," the radio said.

"The party is of the view that the remark is all the more significant as the United Kingdom currently holds the EU presidency and it is feared that Tony Blair's message can be interpreted by voters as the position of the EU," the radio added.

Hungary is due to hold parliamentary elections in the next few months.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.