Jobbik leader: Party not involved in unlawful foreign campaign donation affair

Márton Gyöngyösi, the leader of Jobbik-Conservatives, said on Tuesday he was challenging the head of the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) to a public debate to prove that his party was not involved in the issue of unlawful foreign campaign financing of opposition parties in last year’s parliamentary election.

At a press conference held in front of the headquarters of ÁSZ, Gyöngyösi referred to a recent draft report prepared by the authority on suspicions that the six opposition parties running on a joint list in the 2022 election had received donations that constituted unlawful party financing and had violated Hungarian election law by accepting them. The report released last week suggests that the six parties could be fined HUF 3.2 billion (EUR 8.6m) in total.

“It turns out from the report that Jobbik has accounted for its 2022 campaign spending down to the last penny,” Gyöngyösi said, adding that ÁSZ would also make Jobbik subject to a fine.

The ÁSZ document and a report by the National Information Centre show that “Jobbik has nothing to do with the money movements ÁSZ now seeks to blame on the party under the pretext of unlawful party financing”, said Gyöngyösi.

He said he had not participated in the six-party consultations initiated by the ÁSZ president prior to releasing the draft because they regarded the report as “stating falsehoods”. “Had we been engaged in talks it would have suggested that we had got something to do with the whole affair,” the Jobbik leader said.