Since the Everyone's Hungary Movement (MMM) is not a party, it is free to accept money from abroad, claims Peter Marki-Zay, the former prime ministerial candidate of the Hungarian opposition parties. The picture is far more nuanced, according to Zoltan Lomnici Jr. The Hungarian constitutional lawyer argues that Hungary's left-wing parties must prove that they made no financial gains from the funding that came from abroad via MMM, which will not be easy. In fact, the opposition's campaign was influenced not only by huge money transfers from abroad, but also by foreign experts working along foreign interests, Magyar Nemzet writes.

In a video interview published by the Hungarian portal on September 7, Peter Marki-Zay stated that the rules of party funding do not apply to Everyone’s Hungary Movement (Mindenki Magyarországa Mozgalom; MMM), because the organisation is not a party and has never „behaved” as a party. In his view, he said, they are allowed to accept money from abroad, but he denied that money from the United States had been used for election campaigning during the parliamentary election period. [Parliamentary elections in Hungary were held on 3 April.]

What we did, with support from the Action for Democracy, among others, was a campaign for a change in Hungarian culture,

the former leader of the Hungarian opposition said, adding that he believes that he was not exploiting a loophole when his organisation campaigned with foreign money during the parliamentary election period while he ran as a prime ministerial candidate with the support of all the left-wing parties. In addition, the confirmed that some of the money in question also flowed to the DatAdat group of companies, which is linked to former PM Gordon Bajnai.

In a podcast that aired late in August, Mr Marki-Zay disclosed that „even in mid-June, hundreds of millions of (Hungarian) forints in funding arrived from the United States”.

At the time, he did not hide the fact that the US foundation called Action for Democracy sent this amount in one batch, but claimed that there had been other transfers from this organisation in the past, and that the funds had been raised from many donors overseas.

Responding to the question on whether the notorious US stock market speculator was also among the donors, he said „he didn’t think that George Soros actually donated any money to us”.

At the initial stage of this year’s campaign, serious concerns were already raised, because for the first time since the regime change, the organisation behind the left’s prime ministerial candidate was not a party or a party foundation, but an ordinary civil society organisation, and NGOs enjoy more permissive financial rules than the political parties. Associations, for example, do not come under the financial control mechanism of the State Audit Office of Hungary (ASZ),

Zoltan Lomnici Jr. told Magyar Nemzet.

The constitutional lawyer highlighted that under the party law, a party cannot accept anonymous donations or financial contributions from foreign organisations, or from a non-Hungarian natural person. In his opinion, the left-wing parties must prove that they did not make any financial gains, even indirectly, through MMM and the funds that have landed with the association from abroad.

The State Audit Office will provide an expert opinion in this regard, though this is rather peculiar. However, the position of the opposition parties is weakened by the fact that as part of the billboard campaign „Only upwards” (the slogan Peter Marki-Zay used before the April election – the ed.), the posters featured Peter Marki-Zay together with the joint left-wing candidate of the given constituency all across Hungary,

he added.

The fact that Peter Marki-Zay, now the mayor of Hodmezovasarhely (a town in southeast Hungary), was criticised after the elections by the left-wing parties – who argued that „the amounts that flowed into the account of the Everyone’s Hungary Movement officially belongs to them” – does not appear to strengthen the left’s position, nor does the information that the former prime ministerial candidate wants to use the raised money to launch a new party, the constitutional lawyer explained.

MMM’s argument that it had a separate campaign is not bolstered by the possibility that ex-PM Gordon Bajnai’s DatAdat group – also helping the left from abroad – could have received money from the funds arriving from abroad at MMM to finance the left’s scandalous text messaging campaign, something also launched in the interest of Hungary’s joint opposition alliance,

he remarked.

Overall, the specialist believes that the State Audit Office and the relevant investigative bodies have the authority to fully investigate domestic events.

In addition to all this, Zoltan Lomnici Jr pointed out that in the United States and Canada PACs (political action committees), and more recently so-called 527s collect and jointly manage the campaign contributions of members and donors (who donate funds for campaigns for/against candidates, or referendums and legislation initiatives). The legal expert emphasised that the operation of such organisations is not the norm in Hungary, and that the channelling of secret funds into political campaigns in the US also entails severe punishment.

In a four-part series of articles published recently, Magyar Nemzet revealed the deep layers of foreign donations behind the Hungarian left’s campaign. It turns out that a full-blown, well-organised „American-style” campaign apparatus was set up, complete with a data collection company, political analysts, a series of thematic policy NGOs and an organisation designed to mobilise activists.

The deputy campaign manager and one of the field managers of a former US Democratic presidential candidate, far-left Bernie Sanders, also worked in Marki-Zay’s campaign, which was backed by George Soros’s circles of speculators by all possible means.

After the defeat of Gergely Karacsony in the Hungarian left wing’s primaries, a mysterious financier transferred the poster advertising space rented for the sitting Budapest mayor, or at least did not object to it being transferred over to Mr Marki-Zay, who then, as the opposition’s joint PM candidate, announced on 400 billboards starting in November that Mr Soros did not settle a single migrant in Hungary.

A decisive member of the Hungarian wing of the campaign network that lined up behind Mr Marki-Zay in October 2021 was the company group DatAdat, which includes, for example, Ferenc Gyurcsany’s former minister of intelligence, Adam Ficsor, as well as Viktor Szigetvari, the left’s unsuccessful campaign guru in 2010, 2014 and 2018, and the biggest name, former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai.

Marki-Zay admitted himself that DatAdat had contributed to his campaign in several ways, for example by sending out text messages. The phone messages were able to reach about a million people, but there is no information on how these telephone numbers were obtained.

Team Marki-Zay has also enlisted several celebrities and comedians, perhaps the best-known Hungarian name among them is Tibor Bodocs, who wrote the Nyomtass Te Is! [Print material, too] paper promoting the leftist campaign with a video that disparages those living in rural Hungary.

Just as during previous elections, the organisations maintained by George Soros-funded foundations, as well as the well-known actors working in them, entered the ring again in the most recent campaign. The task of recruiting activists was undertaken by Gordon Bajnai, former head of the left-wing government, with the initiative „20K – Twenty thousand people in ten thousand locations throughout the country for one whole day”. Their declared goal was to provide at least 2 opposition vote counters in each constituency.

Of course, the media also played an crucial role in the campaign, especially press organs that have long been supported by the Soros network, such as 444,hu, the Magyar Narancs weekly, Atlatszo, or Direkt 36.

The collection of evidence presented by Magyar Nemzet through a series of articles shows that the opposition parties were not in charge of the decisive key elements of their campaign machinery during the 2022 election. The strategic decisions of the left’s campaign were determined by foreign influence, including their stance on the hottest topic of the 2022 election, the Russia-Ukraine war.

In a March interview on InfoRadio, PM hopeful Peter Marki-Zay admitted that he consults with experts on national defence and security policy issues, such as the former four-star US General Wesley Clark, as well as with NATO experts such as US-born Evelin Farkas, who has Hungarian roots.

This makes it abundantly clear that the left’s joint PM hopeful was admittedly under the decisive influence of external actors on the issues of war and peace. In light of this, it comes as no surprise that Mr Marki-Zay and many other left-wing politicians demanded the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, and even mulled the possibility of dispatching Hungarian troops to the front line. Their position on security policy issues – which became so crucial over time – happened to coincide with that of George Soros and many overseas politicians, but it ran against the will of the overwhelming majority of Hungarian voters.