Hungary's Bajnai takes over a nation in crisis

Hungarian Prime Minister designate Gordon Bajnai speaks to the ruling Socialist party's congress in Budapest on April 5,2009 to ask for support for his crisis management program.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary's incoming prime minister has promised to tackle his country's economic crisis head-on, but he has little time and will find few friends along the way.

Gordon Bajnai, a 41-year-old businessman turned politician, takes over from the unpopular Ferenc Gyurcsany on Tuesday and has just one year before a national election to pull the Central European nation of 10 million out of its economic crisis.

Bajnai, a political independent and semi-professional soccer player, has served as Economy Minister for the past year. He takes over an economy that will contract 6 percent this year and is kept afloat by a $25.1 billion IMF-led lifeline.

He faces a relentless opposition, poor approval ratings and lingering public criticism over a past business failure.

Colleagues say Bajnai is a quiet man who surrounds himself with a small circle of highly professional advisers and runs a tight ship. This team discipline was evident over the past two weeks when almost no information about the transition came out of a political establishment that is prone to leaking.

He was so intent on keeping his plans for government under wraps that when he interviewed prospective cabinet members, he sent staff out of the room so they did not see who was coming to see him, aides said.

Bajnai lacks the flashy style of his predecessor and investors who have met him say he has a better grip on the scale of Hungary's problems and also a down-to-earth approach which could benefit him in the long run.

But Bajnai begins his term with two strikes against him.

His public approval rating as economy minister is at a dismal 29 points and the opposition, who dubbed him a "Gyurcsany clone," refuses even to sit down with him. It says Bajnai will be the nation's "bloodsucker" like his predecessor.

He can also hardly count on firm support from the ruling Socialists, who will elect him to office. The party is in disarray, struggling with record low ratings and Bajnai is about to ask them to approve painful welfare and pension cuts.

SCHOOL MUTINY, GEESE, FRIENDS

Bajnai's own past could also come back to haunt him.

He presided over the 2003 failure of poultry producer Hajdu-Bet in which hundreds of producers lost their savings.

Opposition newspapers, who have dubbed him "Goose Gordon," argued that a man who could not pilot a poultry firm through its difficulties should not be put in charge of a country.

Bajnai, who plays goalkeeper for the 43rd Epitok or Builder sports club, a fourth division soccer team, is not entirely new to politics after an incident in the waning years of communism.

Studying at the Karl Marx University of Economics in 1987, Bajnai, a communist youth leader, led a student strike known as the "canteen boycott" over poor quality and service at the school's dining hall.

The regime was still years from collapsing and Bajnai's brazen move raised a few eyebrows, but the university relented and agreed to give students better and cheaper food.

Bajnai met Gyurcsany during his university years and after becoming friends, the two men spent the early part of the 1990s working for a financial consulting firm.

The late 1990s also provided Bajnai with an important business connection when he worked at brokerage CA IB under Andras Simor, who is now the central bank governor.

Bajnai's government career has taken its toll on his soccer career. The team's "most valuable player" in 2001 has not started a game since early October.

Bajnai said his goalkeeping experience remains a valuable asset because it taught him how to play in a team, and his job was to stay at the back, defend, and not neglect his responsibilities to run upfield and try fancy footwork.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; editing by Robert Woodward)