A ruling party politician has filed a report of public interest with the Hungarian National Audit Office (ASZ) on the suspicion of illicit party financing regarding the case of billions of forints in campaign funding arriving from the US through the Action for Democracy organisation.

The deputy chairman of the National Security Committee and Fidesz party member has filed a report of public interest with the National Audit Office (ASZ) on suspicion of illicit party financing, the Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet has learned. Janos Halasz has initiated an investigation with the chairman of ASZ, based on the findings issued by the director general of the National Information Centre.

In his report of public interest addressed to Laszlo Windisch, Mr Halasz recalled that the American NGO Action for Democracy (AD) had supported the Everyone’s Hungary Movement (MMM) led by Peter Marki-Zay, the then prime ministerial candidate of the Left, with 1.848 billion forints (about 4.4 million euros) to finance opposition campaign activities in connection with the 2022 parliamentary elections.

Of this amount, MMM paid out around 1.4 billion forints to the DatAdat group of companies, which acts as a social media agency and provides consultancy services. The group includes companies registered under Hungarian and foreign addresses.

As is well known, AD is headed by David Koranyi, who previously worked as an advisor to former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and sitting Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony. It is worth noting that Mr Bajnai is also an owner of the DatAdat group of companies, which ran the Left’s campaign.

In his report of public interest, Janos Halasz wrote that upon analysis of the advertising statistics of MMM on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and in Google Ads between 1 January and 3 April 2022 [elections were held on 3 April], it is visible that MMM spent more than 172 million forints (412 thousand euros). The MP called attention to the fact that based on its official report, the organisation spent almost 530 million forints (1.2 million euros) on Facebook advertisements alone.

By displaying campaign-like ads on social media, MMM clearly supported the nominating organisation, party and candidate running in the parliamentary elections, the politician opined.

The law regulating the operation and management of parties sets out, however, that a party may not accept financial contributions from foreign organisations, regardless of their legal status, or from non-Hungarian citizens. Mr Halasz believes that since the representatives of the organisations involved did not deny the financial transaction, the well-founded suspicion of illegal party financing arises.

The potential violation outlined above could cause masses of voters to lose confidence in the democratic electoral system, which is independent and free from foreign influence, as enshrined in the Fundamental Law,

the ruling Fidesz party MP emphasized.

Janos Halasz, therefore, asked the chairman of the National Audit Office to investigate the case and to take the necessary steps if the law has been violated.