Gábor Kubatov, Fidesz’s party director and voter mobilization expert–who gained a degree of infamy for creating databases containing exhaustive amounts of personal voter data–is reportedly too busy to address the controversy surrounding the use of skinheads to physically block a Socialist MP from submitting a proposed referendum question on Sunday store closures to the National Election Office. Mr. Kubatov is implicated in the scandal, as he also serves as the president of the Ferencváros Torna Club, a professional football club in Budapest, for which many of the burly skinheads who stopped Socialist MP István Nyakó from submitting his proposed referendum question, have previously worked. Thus far, nobody in or around Fidesz knows anything at all about who the mysterious men in back were and who hired them to stop the opposition from submitting a referendum proposal that, if accepted, would have been very politically damaging for the Orbán government.
Hungarian journalists have tried to reach Mr. Kubatov for the past week, but it is impossible to get a hold of him, as he is not answering his cell phone and is not responding to emails. But the mystery of Mr. Kubatov’s whereabouts may have been solved. The Index news site reported on Thursday that a small delegation of Fidesz officials, including Mr. Kubatov, Fidesz MEP András Gyürk and Csaba Dömötör, state secretary in charge of communications, are all embedded with Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s campaign. The three men paid out tens of thousands of dollars to travel with the campaign and to see the inside workings of the Florida senator’s efforts to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. The three Fidesz delegates are using this as a research trip and after paying out over $10,000 per person, they have the privilege of travelling with the Rubio campaign and following every step of his itinerary.
Fidesz party director and vice president Gábor Kubatov.
Initially, I thought this to be a rather odd choice, as Donald Trump would have been a much better fit for the Fidesz delegates. Like Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Mr. Trump eschews coherent ideology or political philosophy for nativist, populist and dog whistle politics, where the main feature is an overarching authoritarianism and personal loyalty to the leader.
But, as it turns out, the connection between Mr. Rubio (and, by extension, the Republican establishment) and Fidesz is Connie Mack, who has won lucrative lobbying contracts from the Hungarian government, worth over 1.4 billion forints. It was also Connie Mack’s job to “defend” Hungary’s government against stinging criticism in the United States. Mr. Mack got to work in no time and launched a website last fall called Hungary Insights. The website is the Orbán’s government’s primary English-language propaganda tool in North America.
According to Connie Mack, “Hungary is the lighthouse of freedom and independence” in Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr. Mack provides a gushing assessment of Hungary, under Prime Minister Orbán, on his website:
“Hungary may not share a border with the U.S. but it shares many of the same values: a devotion to democracy, freedom of expression, and free market capitalism; a belief in religious pluralism and tolerance…Hungarians stand as resolute allies against extremism and violence. Hungary Insights wants to build on those shared values – and bring the American and Hungarian peoples and our two governments even closer together…”
Connie Mack has worked closely with both Jeb Bush and with Mitt Romney, who is now trying to deflate Donald Trump’s campaign, as the brash businessman appears to be steamrolling to the nomination, with the party establishment still watching haplessly and in growing horror.
Unless Mr. Rubio manages to turn things around following his disappointing Super Tuesday performance (where he only managed to win in Minnesota) and unless he turns around the polls and is victorious in his winner-takes-all home state of Florida, where Mr. Trump is leading, it may just turn out that the men from Fidesz–Mr. Kubatov, Mr. Dömötör and Mr. Gyürk–wasted their time and their party’s money, following every step of a losing campaign.
Hopefully, when Mr. Kubatov arrives back home, he will find the time to address the many unanswered questions around the thugs who last week caused chaos at one of the most important department’s of the Hungarian state.
