Although opposition MP Ildiko Borbely Bango listed an economics degree from the Budapest School of Economics in her parliamentary biography, the university says it has no record of this in its archives, the Hungarian press reports.

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) MP Ildiko Borbely Bango does not actually have a college degree in economics, even though she has listed it in her parliamentary biography, the Hungarian news portal mandiner.hu learned from a reliable source. According to the politician’s publicly accessible biography, she attended the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Budapest College of Economics (BGF) graduating in 2013.

The Hungarian portal has submitted a public interest information request to the Budapest Business School (BGE) – the successor of the BGF – to ascertain whether Ms Bango had attended the institution, and if so, for how long, what exams she completed, and whether she had received a degree.

The university replied that the archives of their student records showed „no data on the (…) person in question.”

The journalist also contacted the Office of the National Assembly, where he was told that they have no jurisdiction over assessing the validity of MP biography entries,

which are the sole responsibility of the MP.

Since Thursday, the Socialist MP has not responded to the question from the portal as to whether she does in fact posses a degree from the BGF.

The MP had previously used derogatory terms in calling the ruling Fidesz party voters “rats”. In answering a journalist’s question at the time about the high support for Fidesz in the country, Ms Bango replied that „there are too many rats in Hungary.”

Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany – then a member of the same MSZP party Ildiko Borbely Bango belongs to – was embroiled in a similar scandal about 10 years ago. The search for the college thesis allegedly completed in 1984 by the former premier, who has since established and heads the leftist DK party, was futile. The document was not found at the teacher training faculty of the University of Pecs nor elsewhere, and Mr Gyurcsany himself could not present it either.

The question as to the existence of his thesis was later aggravated by a new suspicion of plagiarism, after it was discovered that his former brother-in-law had already submitted a thesis by the same title (The viticulture of the Balaton Highlands) at a different institution back in 1980.