Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany Saturday tendered his resignation to pave the way for the country's economic and social reforms to tide over the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, Gyurcsany was reelected as the leader of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) on Saturday.

Gyurcsany became prime minister in 2004, following Peter Medgyessy, and was reelected in 2006, making him the first prime minister to keep the office after a general election since 1990.

In 2007, Gyurcsany was elected as the leader of the MSZP.

Gyurcsany was born on June 4, 1961. He studied economics at university and got his degree in 1990.

Benefiting from the privatization of Hungarian state assets during the 1990s, Gyurcsany became one of the wealthiest in the country.

In 2002, he served as a major strategic advisor for Peter Medgyessy, the then PM, and in following year he became minister for youth and sports and children.

Since his 2006 parliamentary election victory, Gyurcsany has introduced austerity measures to tackle the country's budget deficit, which have been criticized by the main opposition party as being too harsh on the people, and by some conservative economists for not reducing spending enough on social benefit.

Gyurcsany has been trying to introduce a health care reform in order to modernize and rationalize the national health care system, however, many Socialist party members regarded this reform as a threat to the country's achievement of free and equal health care service to all.

In September 2006, a leaked recording, on which Gyurcsany admitting the government had lied about the economy, prompted protests outside parliament calling for his resignation. Fortunately, Gyurcsany won a vote of confidence in Parliament in October. The prime minister has been called to step down several times after this event.

Gyurcsany is a strong advocate of the South stream pipeline, a 10 billion euro (12.7 billion U.S.dollars) project that would bypass transit countries such as Ukraine in delivering Russian gas to Europe.

Gyurcsany is married and has four children.

Source: Xinhua