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.

Speculation has been rife over who will head a new Hungarian government after Gyurcsany, announced on Saturday that he would step aside.

The front runner Gyorgy Suranyi, a former finance minister and regional head of Italian banking group Intesa SanPaolo, turned the job down yesterday after failing to secure all-party support.

The centre-right opposition party Fidesz insists that early elections are the only solution to Hungary's political and economic crisis, and refuses to cooperate in setting up an interim crisis government. (dpa)