Hungarian opposition complain over use of ‘Stop Soros’ campaign to influence election

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) will file a criminal complaint for alleged disturbance of the order of elections based on a recent press report which the party claims showed that the government’s “Stop Soros” campaign used public monies to strengthen ruling Fidesz and mislead voters at last year’s general election.

American political consultant George Birnhaum gave an extensive interview to a Swiss magazine about how he and Arthur Finkelstein created the perfect political propaganda, and basically made a global enemy of Hungarian-born U.S. business mogul György Soros for Fidesz’s campaign, read more HERE.

Democratic Coalition

At a press conference on Tuesday, DK deputy group leader Gergely Arató cited a recent interview with US political consultant George Birnbaum, who was a business partner of Fidesz’s late campaign chief Arthur Finkelstein. According to Arató, Birnbaum’s statements published in Switzerland revealed that

the Hungarian government and Fidesz developed a “deceptive and brain-washing propaganda against [US billionaire George] Soros serving their campaign purposes”.

Fidesz “committed a series of crimes by using public monies to distribute accusations against Soros in order to influence the elections”, Arato said. Birnbaum’s “revealing statements” confirmed reports by election observers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) who said there was serious abuse of power at the election, Arató added.

Jobbik

Conservative opposition Jobbik lawmaker György Szilágyi said later on Tuesday that Birnbaum’s remarks translated to a “guilty plea”. He added that

ever since 2008, in all Fidesz campaigns the party intentionally placed emphasis on creating a fake enemy and turning people against each other.

No government could stay in power in a civilised country after it is revealed that it had built several campaigns on lies, using public monies, he said.

Photo: facebook.com/MagyarországKormánya

Source: MTI