Since ejecting Viktor Orbán from his sixteen year rule, Péter Magyar has promised the “return of accountability”. His two years of relentless campaigning were defined by a strong opposition to the corruption and clientelism of Orbán’s System of National Cooperation (NER) – the effort to coordinate the country’s social, economic and political systems towards the goal of consolidating the ruling Fidesz party’s power.
Throughout this time, Magyar levied not only accusations of mismanagement and incompetence against his opponents, but of serious criminal wrongdoing. Although he clarified that “it is not a politician’s job to decide whether or not a former prime minister belongs in prison”, Magyar intends to dismantle the Fidesz-aligned legal system and step aside to allow an independent judiciary to do its job. This has raised questions about the fate of Orbán and those around him. Might Europe’s longest-serving prime minister face prison?
This is unlikely. Although Orbán’s name features prominently among the list of Fidesz scandals, there is scarce legal basis to connect him personally to criminal activity. He has, thus far, ensured a healthy degree of separation from anything that could be traced back to him. Even his infamous manor at Hatvanpuszta, which was alleged to have been built using EU funds, leads investigative journalists to a dead end.
Others, however, have been less careful. Among high ranking government-adjacent characters, a few names are most likely to draw the attention of prosecutors:
Péter Szijjártó
Often viewed as Orbán’s number two, the foreign minister has attracted allegations of the greatest legal severity. Szijjártó’s involvement with Russia, specifically his direct “hotline” to minister of foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov, has elicited accusations of treason from Péter Magyar – which the lawyer turned prime minister-elect clarified, “is punishable by life imprisonment”.
Having served as Hungary’s highest-ranking diplomat since 2014, Szijjártó is perhaps the clearest embodiment of Hungary’s unapologetically flexible foreign policy. As long as the country has been a thorn in the side of the EU, Szijjártó has been the porcupine from which it was pricked.
In a recent investigation, it was revealed that Szijjártó “routinely kept Lavrov informed” about confidential European material. According to tapes of phone calls between the two, this included leaks of closed-door EU council meetings, documents about proposed sanctions, and the coordination of blocking Ukraine’s EU accession. When confronted, Szijjártó unabashedly confessed that he speaks not only to the Russian foreign minister, “but also with the US, Turkish, Israeli, the Serbian ones (...) before and after the meetings of the Council of the European Union”.
The most striking instance was brought to light in an audio recording where Lavrov announced he was calling “on behalf of Alisher [Usmanov]” – a Russian billionaire whose assets were frozen by the EU. Lavrov reminded him that Usmanov was waiting for him to “do something about his sister” – who was also affected by the sanctions – to which Szijjártó dutifully replied that he was submitting a “proposal to the European Union to delist her”. She was later among those removed from the sanctions list.
Although the call does not necessarily constitute criminal behaviour on its own, more fuel was soon thrown on the fire of allegations. On election night, Szijjártó went missing from Fidesz’ results watch party, only to have allegedly been spotted at the foreign ministry, hastily shredding sanctions-related documents the morning after. It is yet to be seen what results a legal inquisition into Szijjártó might bring, but whether or not treason is not among the charges, obstruction of evidence could be added to that list.
Unlike Orbán, Szijjártó is likely to keep his seat in the coming parliament. Shortly after the election loss, the outgoing foreign minister did an interview with Telex in what seemed to be an attempt at damage control. Some sources speculate he is being lined up as the new leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group.
György Matolcsy
Having previously served as minister of the national economy under Orbán’s first government, Matolcsy was appointed governor of the Hungarian Central Bank (MNB) in 2013 – a post he held for twelve years. During that time, it is claimed that over 500 billion forints (1.37 billion euros) were dubiously funneled out of the bank’s funds.
Investing the money through asset manager Optima Zrt., which redirected the funds through an opaque web of private foundations, Matolcsy poured hundreds of billions in MNB funds into shady deals – from overpriced real estate portfolios to companies owned by close associates. The MNB also used the foundation of the state-funded Neumann János University to buy almost 350 million euros of bonds issued by Optima at below-market rates.
Matolcsy also oversaw the renovation of the MNB’s Budapest headquarters, a construction project undertaken by Raw Development Kft., owned by a close associate of Matolcsy’s son. The project’s final cost of 80-100 billion forints (220 - 275 million euros) ended up being around one and a half times its original estimate.
The involvement of Matolcsy’s son, Ádám, in official dealings did not stop here. Despite holding no official role at the MNB, his influence on his father’s mandate is perhaps the most emblematic of the nepotistic, clientelist economic system that developed in Hungary over the past sixteen years. Ádám Matolcsy reportedly oversaw the MNB’s asset management, giving instructions on allocations through an online alias “Petra Kovács”. Through this fake identity, Matolcsy Jr. left little in the way of a paper trail connecting him to the MNB’s dealings.
Aside from dubious financial activity, reports have come out alleging the MNB under Matolcsy was involved in high-level blackmail. Another former central bank governor, András Simor, recently made news when he unexpectedly resigned mid-term from his supervisory board role at Erste Bank.
Why? In an interview with ATV, Simor alleged that he was contacted by the CEO of Erste’s Hungarian subsidiary, who was taken into a “windowless room” by an MNB official. Here, the CEO was informed that Erste’s Hungarian operations would be obstructed as long as Simor – who was appointed by Orbán’s socialist predecessor – remained in his role at Erste.
Simor recognised this as blackmail – arguing that in this form it may be punishable by “three years in prison”. Although no charges have been pressed yet – the operation having been executed carefully without leaving evidence – in the interests of the bank, Simor resigned from his post.
Although it is difficult to tie this latter affair to Matolcsy directly, it would be surprising if a newly independent judiciary did not seek some legal recourse against the MNB – the primary vehicle through which any financial misconduct under the previous administration would have gone.
Lőrinc Mészáros
Nicknamed “Orbán’s wallet”, Mészáros is Orbán’s childhood friend – having grown up together in the town of Felcsút. Having begun his career as a plumber, a common line of attack the Magyar campaign used against the now-billionaire is that “he can neither read nor write – nor speak – very well, but he has become richer in sixteen years than the British royal family in four hundred”.
With Forbes estimating his net worth at around 5 billion dollars, Mészáros has admitted that his good fortune is attributable to three factors – “God, Luck, and Viktor Orbán”. His ascent to billionaire status began after Orbán fell out with businessman Lajos Simicska, with it commonly posited that Mészáros essentially replaced the disgraced magnate as Orbán’s “strawman”.
Mészáros’ fortune consists of – among other things – the asset management conglomerate Opus, multiple constructions and materials companies, a powerplant providing 15 per cent of Hungary’s energy supply, and MBH – the second largest bank in the country.
Whilst there is nothing explicitly illegal in the ownership of the assets, it is the short time under which they were consolidated under Mészáros’ control and the way in which they were acquired which draw legal questions. Particularly in the case of MBH, it was a government-led and subsidised consolidation of the sector which facilitated the merger, and gave Mészáros a 70% stake.
This is precisely what makes Mészáros the most difficult figure to prosecute – and perhaps the most emblematic of how the NER was designed to function. The corruption was baked into the system itself, not into any single illegal act. Mészáros was the beneficiary of a rigged game, not necessarily a criminal in the conventional sense.
The most realistic avenue to changing this may be one that Péter Magyar has already committed to. Magyar’s promise to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) would allow investigations to commence on issues regarding misuse, fraud and embezzlement of EU funds. With Hungary having so far refused the EPPO’s jurisdiction, this could bring to light new evidence against many of the suspect financial and economic dealings of the past sixteen years.
Whether anything prosecutable emerges remains to be seen, but for Mészáros, the EPPO may represent the first genuine legal exposure he has faced in sixteen years.
What will Magyar do?
In his inaugural speech to parliament as prime minister, Péter Magyar made headlines for looking sitting president Tamás Sulyok in the eye, and calling on him to resign due to his complicity in Fidesz’ rule – which ranged from incompetent governance at best, to outright criminality at worst.
It was, however, another part of the speech which may be more revealing of the approach Magyar plans to take in confronting the culprits of the Orban system. “There can be no new beginning without making peace. There can be no peace without justice. And there can be no justice without confronting the past”. The new prime minister spared no words in condemning those in question as “criminals (...) who stole everything that moves”, and stating that it is “our common interest to uncover all the crimes of the past twenty years”.
Restoring an independent judiciary has been a cornerstone of Magyar’s campaign. However, he has been careful in conducting his crusade against the “criminals”, as to not make it appear as a politically motivated witchhunt, but a legally-arrived-at conclusion and objective recognition of crime as crime. This is perhaps the more difficult aspect of the promise to restore accountability. Fidesz deliberately designed its judicial system to outlast a possible political collapse.
Even with his two-thirds supermajority, Magyar cannot simply remove judiciary officials – or even the president, who is able to veto laws. The crucial reform of Hungary’s domestic justice system will be a long and arduous process, with Magyar needing to fight entrenched officials and endless offices stacked with Fidesz appointees. The good news for Magyar is that with the head of the Fidesz creature seemingly cut off, its numerous limbs may find it more difficult to operate without the guarantee of political power backing them. With many of these positions staffed by opportunistic individuals, a large contingent may lose its incentive to remain loyal to the outgoing Fidesz.
Nevertheless, the more immediate avenues to accountability remain the twin pillars of Magyar’s “National Asset Recovery and Protection Office” (Nemzeti Vagyonvisszaszerzési és Védelmi Hivatal), and the support of the EPPO. The former is a proposed new government body dedicated to the tracing, identifying, and seizing assets allegedly taken from the state, with a specific aim to hold key figures accountable, aiming to recover up to 20,000 billion HUF (over 56 billion euros). Although it remains to be seen what legal powers the body is imbued with, a coordinated effort directing state resources to the investigation of missing funds is certainly more likely to uncover at least some irregular activity than the Fidesz policy of apathy or collusion. Accepting the jurisdiction of the EPPO adds another layer of likelihood to this.
Regardless of which high-ranking Fidesz figures end up facing legal consequences personally, the opportunity in front of Magyar – if conducted successfully – can serve as a lesson to the world on how to take down a corrupt dictator, and hold him accountable.