I don’t even know where to start. Not only are we in the middle of an election campaign, but we are also being bombarded with one scandalous revelation after the other linked to the upper echelon of Fidesz, Hungary’s government party.
I already covered the somewhat nebulous story of Lajos Kósa, who allegedly had been fooled for years with the story of the fabulous inheritance that a woman expected from abroad and wanted him to manage. The story was released in dribs and drabs, but eventually the source of the close to $5 billion was said to be Altenrhein Aviation, an aircraft maintenance facility in Switzerland. Based on available information about the company, I doubted that such a huge inheritance could come from Altenrhein. A few days after the story broke, however, a new company name emerged — Pilatus Aircraft Ltd., an aerospace manufacturer that in 2016 employed almost 2,000 people. At the time of Kósa’s involvement with the alleged “heiress,” Altenrhein was owned by Pilatus.
One would have thought that with Altenrhein categorically denying any connection to Kósa’s “heiress,” the story would have died a quiet death. But that was yesterday. Today we learned that the owner of Pilatus Aircraft is a Swiss-Hungarian, Gratian Dietrich Béla Anda, the son of Géza Anda, the world-renowned pianist who settled in Switzerland in 1943. Géza married exceedingly well. His late wife, Hortense Bührle, was the daughter of Emil Georg Bührle, an arms manufacturer, art collector, and patron. Their son Gratian Anda is apparently an excellent businessman who heads a large business empire, IHAG Holding, which includes Pilatus.
Of course, the fact that the half-Hungarian Gratian Anda owned Altenrhein Aviation at the time of the agreement signed by Lajos Kósa and the “heiress” may mean absolutely nothing. But that Anda is Hungary’s honorary consul in Zurich is significant. It indicates that Anda has friendly relations with the Orbán government. Unfortunately, this additional information only further complicated an already confused story. I doubt that it will be sorted out before the election.
So, let’s move on to another bomb, this one dropped by Direkt36 and 444. It concerns the government’s residency bonds, which were the brainchild of Antal Rogán. Over the years the sale of Hungarian residency bonds resulted in permanent residency status for about 20,000 people. The bonds were especially popular in China, Russia, and Ukraine, but, as we just learned today, some Syrians also took advantage of the deal. Normally, countries issuing residency bonds demand that large sums of money be invested in the country of destination. The only thing the Orbán government wanted was ready cash. Recipients of the bonds merely had to lend the Hungarian government about $300,000. The transactions were handled by private companies of unknown ownership, which received a substantial portion of the cost of the bonds. By the time all the costs were tallied up, the Hungarian government most likely lost money on these residency bonds.
There was another problem with them. The government was in such a hurry to process the people applying for permanent residency status that their security checks were superficial. For years, critics have been complaining, while the government kept repeating that their investigations were very thorough and that there will be no national security issues related to these residency bonds.
Well, that is not the case. Direct36 and 444 received a list of residency bond buyers. On the list they found at least two Syrian nationals whose past should have precluded them from receiving Hungarian residency status, which allows them free movement within the European Union. One is Salmo Bazkka, who is suspected of being a member of an international money laundering network. The other is Atiya Khoury, a businessman who is on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list for assisting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The former was arrested last November by the Hungarian authorities after they received a request for his arrest from Italy. Bazkka and several of his accomplices were involved “in laundering and distributing money made from drug and weapons trade and from illegal migration.” As for Khoury, according to the United States he was involved in illegal oil sales that helped ISIS. He has been reported moving large amounts of cash between Syria, Lebanon, and Russia. The whole story can be read in English in 444.
And finally a few words about the latest developments on the campaign front. Yesterday, while discussing Facebook comments, I called attention to critical remarks on Bernadett Szél’s Facebook page because of her party’s refusal to cooperate with others. Today Péter Juhász expressed his frustration with Bernadett on a video. On it, Juhász is ostensibly selling Berni laundry detergent, which is “very effective against cooperation and diversity.”
Péter Juhász selling Berni laundry detergent
Válasz called the video “Péter Juhász petty revenge” because LMP didn’t withdraw its candidate in the district Juhász had a chance of winning. Another commentator, Róbert Puzsér, went so far as to call on the leaders of MSZP and DK “to withdraw their candidates in Budapest and in the larger cities in favor of LMP.” The rationale behind Puzsér’s suggestion is that, in his opinion, MSZP and DK supporters will gladly vote for an LMP candidate while LMP voters will not support DK or MSZP candidates because “they don’t want either Gyurcsány or Karácsony instead of Orbán.” Where does this man live? If anything, the opposite of what Puzsér supposes is actually the case. Just today, a poll was released showing that “if LMP doesn’t withdraw its candidate in District #5 in Budapest, 50% of LMP sympathizers would vote for DK’s Lajos Oláh.”
Bernadett Szél’s real problem at the moment, however, is not Juhász’s not so humorous video. What she really has to worry about is that Fidesz helped her candidate in Budapest’s District #8 collect the necessary endorsements. For years rumors have been circulating that LMP often needed help getting the necessary endorsements and that assistance came from Fidesz. I don’t remember whether it was in 2010 or 2014 when, in the last five hours when LMP was still short of signatures, hundreds of supporters suddenly appeared on the scene. Or at least this is how the story went. But now, the LMP candidate was caught red-handed. Bernadett Szél had to act immediately, and she did. The candidate has been withdrawn and his party membership suspended. In this case there could be no hesitancy on her part. As it is, this is a terrible blow to the party’s chances for a good showing.
Szél’s strategy is incomprehensible to me, and in a way I’m glad that we have one fewer LMP candidate to chip away a few percentage points of the votes from, in this case, the stronger MSZP-P candidate Csaba Tóth. According to taktikaiszavazaz.hu’s estimates, Tóth is leading with 43.3% of the votes, but LMP was apparently quite strong in the district (7.7%). With the LMP candidate out of the way, Tóth should easily win the district, even if Momentum and MKKP (the two-tailed dog party) are still in the race.
So much for the scattershot news of the day. I suspect that the news tsunami will not subside between now and April 8. In fact, I’m sure that the next few days will bring even more incredible stories in an incredible election campaign in which no one has the foggiest idea about the outcome.