HVG published a short article on the results of the municipal election in the city of Pécs with the title “The new mayor of the opposition will start his work by demanding accountability.” In brief, people responsible for the financial wrongdoings that drove the city into bankruptcy must be held accountable. It seemed that HVG was surprised that Attila Péterffy, the newly elected mayor, set out as one of his priorities investigating corruption in the previous administration.
Although the press has reported on some of these cases before, Péterffy began with the one that directly touched on Elios, the firm of Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law, which provided “superior” LED lighting to innumerable cities and towns. This particular corruption case was investigated by OLAF, the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office, which determined that the EU subsidies used for installing the LED lighting had to be paid back to the European Union. Naturally, not by István Tiborcz, the prime minister’s son-in-law, but by the Hungarian taxpayers.
Péterffy wants to learn the details of the city’s decision to hire Elios for the job and intends to file a complaint about the case. He is also planning to find the source of the enormous debt that the Páva administration accumulated, not once but twice in the course of the last ten years. He wants to learn whether the cause of the repeated indebtedness was mismanagement or misappropriation. Péter Hoppál, the Fidesz MP representing Baranya County’s District I, shot back and announced that he will demand accounting of the new mayor from his first day in office.
Pécs City Hall
One Pécs corruption case that received nationwide coverage was the 2015 purchase of 115 used Volvo buses, not straight from Volvo Hungária Zrt. but through a Dutch middleman, naturally at a higher cost. The price was 3.5 billion forints, for which the Fidesz-majority city council approved another loan. No one seemed to be interested in the details of this suspicious purchase until the Dutch authorities called attention to it. The estimated loss to the city was 700 million forints. The investigation, which allegedly started in November 2016, looked into the possibility of money laundering and the misappropriation of funds. The investigation found three suspects, but no one from city hall, even though it is highly likely that someone (or perhaps multiple people) in city hall was (or were) key in the decision-making process.
So, the new Pécs administration will have their plate full. Of course, if in their effort to unmask corruption in the previous administration they have to rely on the totally corrupt chief prosecutor, Péter Polt, they are unlikely to get very far with their complaints. They will have to find a way around the defined hierarchy.
Another very determined new mayor is Krisztina Baranyi of Budapest District IX (Ferencváros). Before I describe Baranyi’s plans for the district, I should say something about her political life. As a member of the by-now defunct Együtt, she was elected to serve as a member of the district council of Ferencváros. Her name is associated with the discovery of illegal poisonous material dumped on the site of the Budapest Chemical Works Zrt. Later, she played a part in uncovering the “parking-fee” case, in which millions and millions landed in individual pockets from collected parking fees. Because of these activities, she was very well known in the district. When the unified opposition chose another candidate, she insisted that the district would be lost if the opposition politicians stuck with that person. After a lot of haggling, a primary was held in the district, which Baranyi won by 70%. Her instinct was correct. She received 57.5% of the votes against the incumbent Fidesz mayor’s 39.5%. And in Ferencváros’s 12 electoral districts, opposition candidates won in 11.
Right after her election, Baranyi appeared at city hall in the company of Antal Csárdi (LMP), the MP of the district, and said that she will make sure that not a scrap of paper will leave the premises. She claimed that hundreds of documents were left unfiled and that her staff had heard that the current mayor is planning a “spring cleaning” of the place. Although she has many ambitious plans to restructure the workings of city hall and companies owned by the district, she also wants to unearth the dirty business practices of the previous administration. As she put it, “I know exactly what I’m looking for and very much hope that I will find it.” She optimistically expressed her belief that “the time when corrupt actions had no consequences is over.” She promised to file complaints as long as there is the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing.
The third newly elected mayor who promised to seek retribution for extensive corruption is Márta V. Naszályi in District I, the Castle District or Budavár. Hers was a narrow win, 48.3% to 47.3%, but nonetheless remarkable. First, because the defeated mayor, Gábor Tamás Nagy, had led the district for 21 years. Second, the district is traditionally conservative. Perhaps Nagy believed that his position was so solid that he could do practically anything and he went too far. Real estate prices are naturally very high in the district and, just as in most districts, a fair number of properties are publicly owned. It came to light that Nagy was renting these properties to family members, friends, and political potentates. In fact, he himself rented an apartment for a ridiculously low price. Although they are supposed to be rentals, they actually function as owned properties. Tenants can rent them for life, the properties can be inherited, and they can be exchanged for other pieces of property. Highly placed Fidesz and government officials have received such property. To name just a few beneficiaries, we have Zsolt Bayer, Mihály Habsburg-Lothringian, László Palkovics, and Csaba Belénessy (the former head of MTI). Márta Naszályi is promising to end these practices and review all suspicious cases.
These are highly commendable efforts, and I hope that the resultant cases will receive a satisfactory and fair review and that, if necessary, they will end up in court. In the past, the Orbán regime could bury charges of corruption, but times are changing.