Hungarian PM celebrates as referendum flops

BUDAPEST, Hungary, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has hailed the failure of a nationalist inspired referendum on Hungarian citizenship as a victory for common sense.

The controversial referendum offering dual citizenship to millions of Hungarians living in neighboring countries flopped because turnout came in at just 37 percent, well below the 50 percent threshold necessary to validate it.

Gyurcsany said on Hungary's Duna Television channel: "I hear the voice of the Hungarian nation. I hear its members saying no to the passions, no to partisanship, no to a fruitless looking back into the past and no to national and social populism."

The referendum had threatened to enflame tensions between Hungary and its neighbors, who were concerned Hungary was attempting to rake over the past and potentially threaten their sovereignty.

At the heart of the issue for nationalists, analysts say, was resentment at Hungary's treatment by the great powers after World War I.

The 1920 Treaty of Trianon carved up Hungary, cutting the country to one-third of its pre-World War I size and leaving millions of ethnic Hungarians outside the country's new borders living in countries such as Romania, Slovakia and Serbia.