Newly-founded NGO revealed how they could give EUR 5mn to opposition PM candidate’s movement

Action for Democracy (A4D), which has supported the opposition alliance’s electoral campaign with an estimated HUF 2 billion (almost EUR 5 million), is to take legal and diplomatic action following the release of a secret service report on Thursday. According to the communique of the A4d, the Hungarian government used the secret service for political purposes by monitoring the organisation’s activities in Hungary.

Action for Democracy, led by Dávid Korányi (head of Gergely Karácsony’s City Diplomacy Unit), was established as an NGO in February 2022. The NGO became well- known in connection with the financing of the opposition’s election campaign, after Péter Márki-Zay claimed in a podcast episode of Magyar Hang at the end of August, that MMM (Everybody’s Hungary Movement) had received donations from the A4D even in the middle of the summer.

Although Fidesz considers the donation of A4D to MMM (led by Márki-Zay) to be one of the most serious party financing scandals in decades, Korányi denied the accusations, as according to him, the organization supported MMM solely with donations from the Hungarian diaspora in the United States. In addition to this, since MMM is not a political party, only a civil movement, it is not illegal for them to receive foreign funding, therefore the opposition alliance legally financed their election campaign with funding from the A4D.

Read also Secret services used in Hungary to monitor NGO activity?

The situation escalated further, following last week’s government info, when Gergely Gulyás labelled the case as

the most serious party financing scandal since the fall of communism

and announced that it is going to be investigated by the National Information Centre which belongs under the authority of Antal Rogán.

The declassified segments of the investigation were presented at the Parliamentary session of the National Security Committee. The results suggest that the Biden administration could have provided support for the A4D. According to the reaction statement of the A4D, the National Information Centre also concluded in the course of the investigation that all funding was lawful. Furthermore, the A4D argued in its statement that the organisation is independent from any government influence and is therefore deeply concerned about the smear campaign, led by the Hungarian government not only against A4D, but against Datadat, and MMM as well. A4D claimed that the necessary legal and diplomatic steps will be taken, as the Hungarian government has used the intelligence services, the police, and the tax office unlawfully for political purposes.

Author: Fanni Horn

Read alsoEvidence found about an illegal Chinese police station in Budapest