Péter Magyar: PM Orbán drove drunk, builds luxury estate in Hatvanpuszta with zebras, palm house, armoured cars

Péter Magyar, PM Orbán’s challenger and the leader of the Tisza Party, shared surrealistic information about the wealth and living conditions of the Orbán family. He talked about the family’s Hatvanpuszta luxury estate and mentioned a Balatonhenye estate, both under construction. But the Tisza leader shared even more. Among others, he stated that Orbán drove from Tabajd to Felcsút after consuming a bottle of wine. The government reacted shortly: Magyar’s allegations are ridiculous.

New bill can strip Hungarian MEPs from mandate

Péter Magyar, the challenger of PM Orbán, and his Tisza Party are leading most polls in Hungary, only government-close pollsters share data about Fidesz’s leadership. Magyar believes that this is the reason why Orbán’s Fidesz submitted a bill to the Hungarian Parliament in which they would empower the National Election Office to withdraw the mandate of an MEP provided they find an error in their asset declaration. Members of the National Election Office are elected by the Hungarian Parliament where Orbán’s Fidesz and KDNP have supermajority. The new bill would make it compulsory for Hungarian MEPs to submit an asset declaration similar to the one that the Hungarian MPs must hand in each year.

Magyar believes the change targets him and that Orbán would like to take away the MEP mandate he won last June when the Tisza got almost 30% of the popular votes, an unprecedented result since 2009.

Magyar donates half of his monthly MEP salary to charity

Therefore, he listed his assets and income, and how he uses that income (he donates half of it to charity) in the Facebook post. However, these sentences are not the most interesting part of the post. He invited Orbán to play a game together and share not only their asset declarations but also the asset declarations of their relatives. Magyar did not specify which relatives he meant (kids, grandkids, parents, grandparents, etc.).

That is an important question concerning the Orbán family because Hungarian media found that there is a grandiose ongoing construction work on the estate of Győző Orbán, the prime minister’s father, in Hatvanpuszta. Opposition politicians and investigative journalists believe that the luxury estate belongs to the son instead of the father and that is what Magyar “confirmed” in his post (he did not support his allegations with proof).

Did PM Orbán drive drunk?

Magyar wrote that Anikó Lévai, Orbán’s wife told him how they bought nursery-grown trees for HUF 30 million (EUR 75,500) each. He talked about the fact that he accidentally poured wine on Orbán’s white shirt and how the prime minister drove home from Tabajd to Felcsút after drinking a bottle of wine. The distance between Tabajd and Felcsút is 7 kilometres but between the two settlements is Alcsútdoboz.

He also mentioned a family fresco in the main building of the luxury estate and zebras in the inside safari park. He added that Orbán’s grandkids are afraid of the zebras.

The Hungarian government shared a laconic answer to those allegations and called them ridiculous.

In turn, Magyar called PM Orbán’s claim that his father would use the estate (that cost at least HUF 13 billion (EUR 32.7 million)) ridiculous. He wrote there was a library room, a contemplative walkway, pools, groves, ponds, and three huge cooling rooms. Concerning the latter, he mocked the family again, asking whether the three cooling rooms would be for Orbán’s mother to store food for dinners for two.

New Orbán estate in Balatonhenye?

Magyar also wrote about a panic room, a palm house (which was too small originally and Orbán, allegedly, had it rebuilt), and armoured vehicles in the garage. He also wrote about another luxury estate in Balatonhenye, a small village where Magyar and his former wife, Judit Varga, had a house. Magyar said they cut down the trees from half of the hill, redirected the National Blue Trial Route and asked Magyar not to run for the village’s mayorship.

Magyar said locals believed the new estate would belong to the prime minister’s daughter. Átlátszó wrote multiple times about the Balatonhenye project, saying in 2021 that the place was in the ownership of a private asset management fund connected to István Tiborcz, Ráhel Orbán’s husband. Days later, former finance minister of the Bajnai government, Péter Oszkó’s asset management company, OXO Properties Holding Ltd, clarified that the property belonged to them. In 2022, the construction project continued in Balatonhenye.

According to PM Orbán’s asset declaration, the amount of saved money he had was HUF 5.7 million (EUR 14,300) in January. Also in January, his monthly salary rose to above HUF 7 million (EUR 17,600), growing to 11 times the average salary in Hungary.

Read also:

• PM Orbán ordered the National Information Center to compile the list of foreign-funded NGOs, media – read more HERE
• “Prime Minister, East or West?” Orbán’s main challenger Péter Magyar asks