Budapest - Hungary's parliament on Tuesday initiated a constructive vote of no confidence against Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.

The motion, signed by 92 members of parliament, calls for the replacement of Gyurcsany with current Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai.

Subject to approval by a parliamentary committee, the vote should be held on April 14.

The move is in line with a plan announced by Gyurcsany himself at a party conference on March 21.

Budapest - Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany quit as head of the Hungarian Socialist Party on Saturday, after nominating Minister for Economy and Development Gordon Bajnai to lead an interim government.

Speculation has been rife over who will be Hungary's new prime minister since Gyurcsany said at his party's congress on March 21 that he would step aside to make way for a new government with a new leader.

Budapest - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has nominated Janos Takacs, the CEO of Electolux Hungary, as a his replacement, the news agency MTI reported on Friday.

Takacs, a former financial director of IBM Hungary, would neither confirm or deny whether he had been asked to consider the position.

"It would be a greater honour and I would at least consider it," Takacs told the Hungarian state news agency MTI.

Budapest  - Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced on Tuesday evening that the Socialist Party leadership had drawn up a shortlist of three potential candidates for his replacement.

He named the banker and former finance minister Gyorgy Suranyi, the historian and former head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Ferenc Glatz, and Andras Vertes, head of the economic research

institute GKI.

"The MSZP leadership recommends that official consultations should begin with and about these three candidates," Gyurcsany said.

Budapest  - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced his resignation on Saturday, saying a new government with a new leader was needed to tackle his country's economic meltdown.

Hungary's main opposition party, Fidesz, promptly repeated its call for early elections, announcing that it plans to present a motion to dissolve parliament on Monday. If that motion is carried, it would complicate Gyurcsany's goal of passing his position on to another member of his party.

Budapest  - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced his resignation on Saturday, saying a new government with a new leader was needed to tackle his country's economic meltdown.

Hungary has been particularly hard hit by the global recession and Gyurcsany has seen his personal popularity hit a rock bottom of 18 per cent - the lowest for any Hungarian premier since the fall of communism.

At a congress of his Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) in Budapest, the deeply unpopular premier spoke of the need for a wider social consensus to tackle the crisis.