About 10,000 people peacefully ended a demonstration in front of the neo-Gothic parliament building in the early hours.

At midday yesterday the crowd was in the hundreds, but opposition leaders said it could swell to 200,000.

The protests have widened the bitter division between Hungary's right and left, both accusing the other of fomenting violence to win ground ahead of local elections on 1 October.

The main opposition Fidesz shelved its plans for last night's mass rally, which the Socialist-led government warned could rekindle violence that injured more than 200 people this week.

However, some of its hundreds of thousands of supporters were still expected to travel from their rural heartlands to the capital and its leaders continued to call for Gyurcsany's head.

"Ferenc Gyurcsany has removed himself from (the list of) acceptable politicians, " Lajos Kosa, mayor of the Fidesz stronghold city of Debrecen, told Hungarian television.

"We have to decide whether our democracy is about electing a dictator for four years or a prime minister who is not above the law. Ferenc Gyurcsany has placed himself above the law."