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BUDAPEST, Hungary (CNN) -- Hungary's prime minister has refused to resign after Monday's anti-government riots and vowed to push ahead with tough economic reforms despite admitting in a leaked recording that officials lied about the economy.
"I'm staying and (I'll) do my job," Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Tuesday.
"I'm extremely committed to fulfill my program. These are difficult adjustments and reforms. I know it's very difficult for the people but this is the only route or direction for Hungary."
The riots, in which 150 people, including 102 police officers, were injured, were "the longest and darkest night" for the country since the end of communism in 1989, the embattled leader said.
Police surprised
Gyurcsany went on to tell reporters that the unrest at the Budapest headquarters of Hungarian state television took police by surprise.
He vowed to use all means possible to re-establish order after protesters clashed with police and stormed the headquarters of Hungarian state television, MTV.
"The street is not a solution, but instead causes conflict and crisis," the prime minister told state-run news agency MTI early Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. "Our job is to resolve the conflict and prevent a crisis."
Smoke and tear gas wreathed the headquarters of the broadcaster, where police clashed with demonstrators, who were demanding the PM quit, around midnight Monday. Police retook the headquarters of the broadcaster Tuesday, AP said.
Water cannons were turned on protesters, some of whom were trying to break into the building, and several officers were injured during the demonstrations, police spokesman Lajos Nenet said.
The demonstrations drew up to 10,000 people, many of them from the country's conservative opposition, to the streets outside the broadcast center, Nenet said.
Justice Minister Jozsef Petretei, who also oversees the police force, submitted his resignation because of the outbreak of violence, but his offer was rejected by Gyurcsany.
The turmoil exploded Sunday, when state radio aired an audiotape of Gyurcsany telling members of his ruling Socialist Party that his government had lied about the state of the country's economy throughout its two years in power.
"We lied throughout the past one and a half or two years," he said. "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening and also at night."
The remarks came in a conversation taped during a party retreat in May. President Laszlo Solyom said the prime minister's admission has caused a "moral crisis" in Hungary, but Gyurcsany -- who has led the the NATO and EU member state since 2004 -- has vowed to remain in office despite the protests.
Gyurcsany's center-left coalition won a mandate in April by a narrow margin, become the first Hungarian government re-elected since the Iron Curtain came down in 1989. Opponents had accused his government of manipulating economic data during the campaign.
On the tape, he said the government had botched economic policy "not a little bit, but very much. None of the other European countries have done such stupid things that we did."
Economic fears
Gyurcsany told interviewers he was referring to the actions of Hungary's political elite over several years, not just his government.
He said his taped remarks to party members were intended to force them to admit to their mistakes and back much needed reform measures.
He won April's election partly on a promise of tax cuts but has since imposed tax hikes and benefit cuts worth $4.6 billion in 2007 alone to curb Hungary's budget deficit, which will surge by 10.1 percent of its gross domestic product this year.
Investors who hold billions of dollars of Hungarian bonds are worried over the fate of the reforms, which most economists see as the only way to rescue the country's strained finances and keep up hopes of joining the euro zone.
On Tuesday, the forint weakened slightly against the euro from five-week highs on Monday, and was trading at 273.63 to the euro, down from Monday's close of 270.42.
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