As of: February 13, 2024, 4:35 p.m
By: Kilian Beck
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An ex-diplomat reports from Orbán's Hungary.
About nepotism, the cover-up of an abuse scandal, spying and threats from secret service agents.
Budapest – Partisan
recently gave a rare insight into the power apparatus of the Hungarian head of government
.
Péter Magyar, a former Hungarian diplomat and Orbán favorite, described his experiences in the autocrat's power system to the medium for an hour and a half - in front of an audience of millions.
Magyar was, among other things, head of department at the Hungarian Development Bank, which is powerful in the domestic economy, and sat on the boards of several state-owned companies.
His allegations from the interview published over the weekend cannot be independently verified.
However, they partially correspond to what is known about corruption and abuse of power in Hungary.
Orbán’s “power factory” has a goal for Fidesz party minions: “enormous prosperity”
The lawyer and former diplomat in Hungary's EU representation sharply criticized Orbán's government and the Fidesz party: Magyar said loudly that it was essentially a "power factory" that aimed to create "enormous wealth" for its favorites the British
Guardian
.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
© Stephanie Lecocq/Pool Reuters/AP/dpa
He criticized the fact that “a handful of families own half of the country,” as the anti-government online medium
444.hu
reported.
Hungary's head of government has been exposed to these accusations for years.
The best-known case of clientelism is Orbán's school friend Lőrinc Mészáros, who rose from a self-employed plumber to the richest man in Hungary within ten years.
The
Süddeutsche
reported at the time that Mészáro's conglomerate had at times been awarded contracts for up to 20 percent of all EU-funded public tenders.
Ex-Orbán diplomat sees greater involvement of the Fidesz “management level” around the abuse scandal
The impetus for the interview and Magyar's apparent exit from the Orbán system was an abuse scandal that reached up to the top of the republic, wrote the
Guardian
.
Hungarian President Katalin Novák resigned after it became public that she pardoned a man who aided and abetted child abuse.
With her, former Justice Minister Judith Varga, who until then had been the leading European election candidate for Orbán's Fidesz party, took her hat.
Varga is Magyar's ex-wife.
Judit Varga at a conference of the right-wing radical EU Parliament group “Identity and Democracy”.
© IMAGO/JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE
Magyar said Varga and Novák were not the only ones responsible,
according to the Austrian daily
Standard .
But they would “hide behind women’s skirts,” said Magyar.
According to the
Guardian
, he located other masterminds of the pardon in the “leadership” of the Fidesz party.
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Spying and threats from the secret service?
– Pegasus use in Hungary has been documented for years
The ex-diplomat personally directed allegations against Antal Rogán, Orbán's head of cabinet and right-hand man, who is responsible for the secret services and, according to the
Guardian
, is also said to have considerable influence on the almost completely state-controlled media landscape in the country.
According to Hungarian investigative reporter Szabolcs Panyi, Magyar said spy software was found on his smartphone.
As early as 2021, the
Guardian
published research that suggested that Orbán's domestic secret service had journalists spied on using the spy software “Pegasus”.
444.hu
reported that Magyar said he had been approached by secret service agents in the Carmelite monastery - Orbán's official residence - "in connection with his divorce" from Judith Varga
.
Shortly afterwards, according to Magyar, he was visited at his place of work.
It was a "warning" that after the divorce from the Minister of Justice there should be no "mishap" with information that he might have from their time together.
According to the
Guardian,
as of Tuesday morning, none of the government agencies contacted had responded to the allegations.
Zsuzsanna Végh from the German Marshall Fund told the newspaper that she saw no reason to believe that Orbán's base was crumbling.
The polls are too clear and Fidesz is too powerful.
She expects a “show of force” against dissidents in her own ranks.
(
kibec
)