We had a selfie with Hagyó on the Subway line 4!

Today Budapest is celebrating the Subway line 4 with a surprising party exemption. The whole media, competent and amateurs, oranges and red, passengers and BKV workers exalt the final form of the gigantic project.


And true what is true, it’s just enough to go down to one-one station to be completely floored for its own world and for the visions from the forms, shapes, devices and surfaces. I1m not going to even gush more about it, see it if you can.

We thought that we will ask a person on the presentation day, who was concerned in a more deeply way into the project just to cut the strip. Thus through his lawyer we contacted Miklós Hagyó former socialist deputy lord mayor, who – although didn’t cut a stripe today – was responsible for the investment during his office period and (since then it turned out that wrongly, without a reason, with fake cause) he was in pre-trial detention for it.


Miklós Hagyó in the beginning – kept himself for his muteness in the last 4 years – didn’t want to declare, however he called us back during the day to send a short message to everyone who was concerned with the building operations. He did it in this way without any verbal comment:




„From the people who created the idea to the person who pull the last screw, we, thousands of Hungarian people can be proud and we can thank to God that a big building operation like this came true uniquely in the world without any accident.”

They can start the Hagyó case from the beginning

There is still no owner for the notorious crimes, for the BKV scandal, for the 15 billion MVM misappropriations or for the Sukoró case. All of these were started in the countryside, but after the decision from the Constitutional Court about the case transferences, the cases had been stopped, because the courts in the countryside didn’t keep being competent anymore. 

The special cases can be stopped for maximum 3 months without consequences. By this time we already overstepped the 3 months round, so it seems like that now it doesn’t matter anymore that what court will be the competent, they have to start over all the special cases.

On 13th of June, 2012 the criminal suit of Miklós Hagyó, former deputy lord mayor and his fellows started on the Kecskemét Tribunal. Photo: Huszti István / Index

The arguments about the unclaimed notorious cases came so far for now that – it seems like – that it sure that they have to start them over, independently from that fact that in which court will the cases continue. These are those difficult, big cases what the transferred to countryside court because of the workload of the Budapest’s court: such as the BKV scandal which was transferred to Kecskemét, or the former MVM leader, István Kocsis’s 15 billion misappropriation case which started in Kaposvár. The status of these cases fell over when the Constitutional Court in the beginning of December said that the former law which was the basis of the case transferences was unconstitutional and it had been already repealed. First it said that the decision of the Constitutional Court doesn’t influence the pending cases because the Constitutional Court rejected the proposal when they asked the extermination of the dockets of the transferences. 

Hungary, An Election in Question, Part 5

This is the final post of a new series from my Princeton colleague Kim Lane Scheppele, head of Princeton’s Law and Public Affairs Program.

Hungary: An Election in Question
Part V: The Unequal Campaign
Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton
24 February 2014

Kim Lane Scheppele

Officially, the election campaign in Hungary starts 50 days before an election, so the race began in earnest on 15 February for the 6 April election. Once the campaign period starts in Hungary, special rules ensure that all parties are treated equally.

But as Anatole France once said, “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.”

We’ve already seen how the new system in Hungary was designed to push opposition parties into an uncomfortable alliance and to require they win by a substantial margin to win at all. And we’ve seen how the system of minority and foreign voting has opened the doors for Fidesz voters while closing them to those who would vote for opposition parties.

Not surprisingly, the rules for the campaign period itself also have a similar logic.

How Did Hungary’s Election Become a Circus?

By DANNY HAKIMMARCH 1, 2014


BUDAPEST — THE most visible poster on the streets here is not the one advertising the Deep Purple concert at the Papp Laszlo Sportarena. And it’s not the one for “Balkan Kobra,” a theatrical comedy featuring a stubbly hero sporting tight jeans and a Kalashnikov. And it’s definitely not the one for the Budapest Dance Festival.

Instead, it’s the one that shows three or four guys wearing neckties standing in a police lineup, alongside a clown. In one of the more ubiquitous versions of the poster, two of the men are former left-wing prime ministers of Hungary. A third is Attila Mesterhazy, president of the country’s Socialist Party and a current candidate for prime minister in the coming election in April. The fourth is Miklos Hagyo, the former left-wing deputy mayor of Budapest, who is currently the subject of a corruption trial.



An ad from a pro-ruling-party group features opposition politicians, a clown and the tag line “They Don’t Deserve Another Chance.” Credit Akos Stiller for The New York Times

The men, and the clown, appear above the slogan “They Don’t Deserve Another Chance.”

Given that political advertising has been sharply and abruptly curtailed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz Party, the pre-eminence of a political ad — on billboards, lampposts and the sides of buses — might seem surprising. But Fidesz, which has been widely criticized as taking Hungary in an autocratic direction since taking power in 2010, has become adept at controlling the message. It has rewritten the state’s Constitution, come to dominate all branches of government and held increasing sway over the news media. Meanwhile, according to the International Monetary Fund, Hungary’s economic output is not expected to return to 2008 levels until 2017.

Civil Unity Forum (CÖF) – flyer for almost 40 million

The smear „clown” campaign against the leaders of the opposition united leaders can be even 100 million forint for the CÖF-CÖKA organization which organized the Peace Marches. For the first wave the country was infested with huge billboards, and on the last week they started to spread their 16 pages colored publication in 4 million copies. 

This is shows the opposition leaders in the clown composition which is well known from the billboards. The cost of the campaign is covert by the CÖF-CÖKA. As they still debtor with the cost of the „They ruined the country together” action in the end of 2012 which is focused on Gyurcsány and Bajnai.




Lot of people march with the CÖF, but the supporter is little  PICTURE: ISTVÁN BIELIK


Because in the name of the „civilian” László Csizmadia answered to our paper for the question about their present cost he answered that „we don’t declare in this cases because we said it more times that we are settling and we can be settle”, the Népszava tried to guess the costs for the campaign books. It made us harder that the Hungarian Post Office Ltd. didn’t want to tell us the cost of the spread.

On their website according to their official rate is net 4,5 forint to allocate to the target the advertisement publications, which would mean gross 22,86 million forint, but the Post Office reported that this price is only available for the ”public senders”. (According to our information the Post Office asks from the parties a near tariff as the public senders tariff, which based on the amount in 2010 it got 3,5-4 million „campaign message” to the houses – the editor.) If the state company wouldn’t give a preference for the CÖF-CÖKA which is campaigning for the Fidesz then it would cost 14-16 million forints. 

Free and fair election? It doesn’t look promising

It was on August 6, 2011 that I reported on Hillary Clinton’s apprehensions about the state of democracy in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. She talked about the two-thirds majority that “offers the temptation to overreach. It can … allow for important checks and balances to be swept aside, and valid objections from citizens to be ignored.” 

This is why “the United States and other friends” are urging Hungary to pay special attention to the drafting of the cardinal laws. “The most important of these will pertain to an independent media and judiciary, and free and fair elections. The system cannot be permanently tilted to favor one party or another.”

Elsewhere, also during the same trip to Hungary, in a conversation with leaders of the opposition she reiterated that holding “free and fair elections” is a prerequisite of democracy. If that principle is violated, we can no longer talk about a free and democratic society. She practically told the opposition leaders: let’s see what happens. Until then, we cannot do anything.

Well, the national election will be held on April 6, 2014, and it can easily happen that it will be anything but fair. It will be a system that is “tilted to favor one party.” Foreign observers will most likely not find wholesale cheating, although even that possibility cannot be entirely ruled out, but the constantly changing laws over the past year or so are destined to tilt the playing field in favor of the governing party.


Here are a few worrisome signs that Viktor Orbán is planning to determine the outcome of the election through rules and regulations that are disadvantageous to the opposition. Let’s start with the introduction of a system that forced all the opposition forces to form a united front against one highly centralized and monolithic party, Fidesz. Getting the divergent parties to agree to a common platform took a long time and gave an undue advantage to Fidesz. Second, the redrawing of the electoral districts greatly favors Fidesz. Third, according to the Hungarian constitution the president alone can determine the date of the election within a certain time frame and naturally János Áder, a former Fidesz politician, picked the earliest possible date, which favors the government party. He did that despite the fact that a later date would have allowed the government to hold the national and European parliamentary elections at the same time. Another reason for not holding the two elections simultaneously was Fidesz’s desire to have a low turnout at both elections. A low turnout favors Fidesz.

The Hagyó case had been replaced to Budapest – Népszava article

In the criminal procedure of the former deputy lord mayor and his 14 associates in the warrant from the Kecskemét Tribunal on December 6th, 2013, they established the lack of cognizance and they placed the case to the Budapest Tribunal – announced the Kecskemét Tribunal. 

As it known: Handó Tünde, the president of the National Judicial Office (the wife of József Szájer, who is a Fidesz representative of the European Parliament) in 2012 appointed the Kecskemét Tribunal for the continuance of the process. In the meantime the provisions of measures were eliminated by the Constitutional Court which was the basis of the appointment – with the references of collision with the basic law offence and international contracts.