Did a foreign network interfere in 2022 Hungarian elections?

“The network interfering with Hungary’s 2022 parliamentary election from abroad is still active and is working towards escalation of the war in Ukraine,” the Sovereignty Protection Office said in a report released on Wednesday evening.

In its report, concerning an investigation into footage posted on the X social media platform, the authority said that “5.5 million US dollars were sent to Hungary through US-registered Action for Democracy (A4D) in the period examined … a part of which went to the DatAdat group, linked to former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai”.

According to the report, the “illegal campaign financing” was linked to a “network-like structure with its own political and business interests intertwining the whole of central Europe”. “Countries where they can effectively promote those interests are considered good allies but where the leadership is in conflict with those interests they seek to achieve a political change,” the authority said in its report. Members of that network “have suggested a similar interference in the recent elections in Poland and Slovakia”, it said.

The report also said that “it was not the parties receiving illegal foreign financing that were seeking supporters; it was the powerful donors that looked for agents to implement their goals.” “Those speaking in the recordings identified George Soros as one of their great donors,” the report said.

“The network is lobbying in the United States for the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war,” the report said. Referring to remarks by Wesley K. Clark, a retired US general and member of an advisory body to the A4D, the report said that Clark had discussed with Hungarian diplomat Andras Simonyi, who lives in Washington, “coordination of business opportunities and military conflicts to be escalated by the US”. Clark and Simonyi said in the recordings that their activities had “contributed to shaping America’s pro-war stance” and criticised the Biden administration for its “less than sufficient intervention” in the war.

The report said the recordings in which representatives of Hungary’s leftist opposition alliance “talk about influencing the elections and political life in Hungary” were “creditable and have not been manipulated”.

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