The Hungarian opposition denounced this Saturday that the Government of Péter Magyar is trying to involve the entire conservative spectrum in the seizure of 17.7 million euros in cash located by the authorities at various properties of the Christian Democrat MP and former Orbán loyalist minister Miklós Seszták, who was detained last September.
The top leader of the Christian Democratic Party (KDNP), Bence Rétvári, has called on Seszták to give up his seat and has urged him to “defend himself before the authorities” and prove his “innocence,” while accusing Prime Minister Péter Magyar of taking advantage of the scandal to “present the entire right as a criminal organization.”
After the investigations —in which 17.7 million euros were found on the ground, in warehouses and in safes linked to Rétvári in different parts of the country—, the party has opened a disciplinary file against Seszták and has ordered the precautionary suspension of his membership, according to what the Hungarian agency MTI reported.
Rétvári has emphasized that, in his view, it is a specific criminal procedure that must be kept “clearly separate from its political community,” rejecting the accusations made by Magyar against his party and Orbán’s.
In response, Magyar has urged members of the Fidesz parliamentary groups —Orbán’s force— and of the KDNP to dissociate themselves and submit their resignation, arguing that Fidesz is an “organized criminal group” and that the former prime minister is a “defeated and terrorized mafia boss,” also warning that “whoever stays and does not resign (...) the whole country will know that he is part of Orbán’s mafia.”
For his part, Viktor Orbán has defended that his “political community and the Fidesz party are not like that” and that they are “victims” of “arbitrary justice with political motivations,” and he has accused Magyar of seeking to “end the opposition” and install a “dictatorship.”
The head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, János Bóka, has also demanded that Seszták leave his seat in the Hungarian National Assembly.
The case takes shape as a new scandal that hits Seszták’s career —considered one of Orbán’s main backers in northeastern Hungary—, who was already arrested in September on suspicion of corruption.
The National Office for Recovery and Protection of Heritage (NVVH) this Friday informed the MTI agency that on November 12 and 13 coordinated investigation operations were carried out in Budapest and in the counties of Pets, Békés and Nógrád, within the criminal proceedings against the former Minister of Development Miklós Seszták, who held the portfolio during the third Government of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In the records, the agents located significant amounts of cash hidden in homes, storage facilities, agricultural installations and safes located in remote areas, and even buried in wooded areas. The cash seized during the two days of the operation exceeds five million forints (about 13.8 million euros), 2.6 million euros and 1.2 million dollars (more than one million euros), totaling 17.7 million euros.
The central general prosecution office for investigation has opened proceedings against Seszták for an alleged multimillion-dollar bribe linked to passenger transport services and to the purchase of buses by Volánbusz Zrt. The investigations point to the fact that the former minister and the former CEO of the Hungarian National Asset Management Company would have received, through an intermediary, more than 11,000 million forints between 2015 and 2018 from contracting companies.