The cornerstones of the programme were maintaining neutrality and independence of Hungary, and ensuring the democratic rights and principles of parties.
Upon the result of the peer pressure of the pro-Soviet Left Bloc parties, the parliament made further steps away from the Western democracies and towards a Soviet-type system that elections were held.
After an interim presidency of physician Gyula Gueth, the first congress of the party elected the Hungarian-American Ernő Hóka as leader of the SZP.
The SZP accepted a strong anti-communist programme and demanded the immediate resignation of the reformist communist Miklós Németh cabinet.
The party marginalized due internal conflicts by end of 1989, thus its application for admission to the Hungarian Round Table Talks was refused.
[6] The Freedom Party could run only five individual candidates in the 1990 parliamentary election and set up two regional county lists (Somogy and Zala).
The SZP split into two factions under the leaderships of Gyula Gueth and Ferenc Torda on 15 August 1992, when the latter one founded a new organization called Hungarian Freedom Party.