The World - News from March 12, 1989

The Hungarian Democratic Forum, the country’s largest independent political group, opened its founding congress with a call for new policies and opportunities. The two-day congress of 750 delegates, representing 13,000 members, will elect leaders and debate a draft charter declaring such aims as freeing Hungary of the remnants of Stalinist rule. “This nation requires new policies, because it needs new rights, new institutions and new opportunities,” co-founder Zoltan Biro, expelled from the Communist Party last April, told the meeting. The forum, founded in 1987, is the first new political organization to have emerged during the recent period of liberalization in Hungary. The Communist Party agreed last month to restoration of the multi-party system it repressed 40 years ago.