The Orbán regime shows early signs of disintegration

HUNGARY - In Brief 06 May 2026 by Istvan Racz

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It is still three days to go until the first session of the newly elected parliament, at which Mr. Magyar is supposed to be elected as prime minister. Yet it is spectacular that outgoing PM Orbán's power machine does not seem to work exactly as a precise Swiss-made clockwork any more.Initially, resignations, departures from Fidesz and/or open criticism of various aspects of the governing party's activities appeared sporadic at best. Exactly because of this, it was quite surprising that a key businessman from Fidesz's background, the very top figure behind the party's highly controversial election propaganda on the implementation side, appeared in the independent media, offering a number of his companies and even financial assets for a free transfer to the Hungarian State, in exchange for impunity for alleged and unspecified wrongdoing which he claimed he never committed. This person is known to own some 100 media and background companies, employing close to five thousand people, having won some HUF1300bn (1.4% of annual GDP) total orders from public procurement tenders, and took some HUF92bn in dividends from this empire over several years. However, as he himself disclosed, NAV (the tax authority) and the police have blocked some of his companies' accounts, launching investigation(s) for the suspicion of embezzlement and money laundering most recently.In a separate story, one of Mr. Orbán's cabinet ministers has been found distributing some HUF17bn of public funds out of the National Cultural Fund prior to the election irregularly, circumventing the standard procedure set for such action. In response, several members of the committee mandated to distribute such money, ...