Deputy state secretary arrives in Canada to buy Hungarian votes for Fidesz

For the past years, Canada has been the target of an unusually high volume of senior level Fidesz political visitations, all travelling on taxpayers’ money, to work over the pro-Fidesz Hungarian diaspora. (The Hungarian governmental visits to Canada outnumber the number of such visits by Canadian governmental officials to Hungary, on a scale of roughly 100 to 1.) Virtually every second week, there is a coast to coast Canadian road show, costing many millions of forints to Hungarian taxpayers that has only one purpose – to keep up the solidarity and pro-Fidesz resolve of the various Hungarian communities and to ensure that they wage a resolute battle against those (such as the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter) who are critical of the Orbán regime. In addition billions more are spent through Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s office, and with Deputy State Secretary Tamás Wetzel’s direct involvement, providing pro-Fidesz Canadian individuals, and organizations with human resources (e.g. the Körösi Csoma Program) in order to secure their political loyalty to the regime and ensure that they will champion Fidesz within the Hungarian and broader public arena.

Tamás Wetzel is in Canada this week to shore up support for Fidesz withing the Hungarian community.

Tamás Wetzel is in Canada this week to shore up support for Fidesz within the Hungarian community.

This is rampant partisan political patronage on taxpayers’ money and is against the lobbying regulations of Canada, the rule of law and party financing. The magnitude of the Orbán regime’s public expenditures on party-political financing needs to be closely scrutinized and reported upon. We are counting on all those who respect the rule of law, responsible public financing and equality in political competition to provide us with information about this abuse of the public’s trust. Please help us to fight the Hungarian Kleptocracy.

There is no precise, as yet verifiable figure on the magnitude of the financial abuse, because there is no transparency and the Hungarian PMO refuses to disclose the expenditures or the process through which it promotes itself in Canada. Canada is a strategically important bridgehead into North America. There are no figures available, for example on how much is being spent on these weekly, bi-weekly high-level political visitations to Canada, that tend to proceed coast to coast, often involving business-class or first class travel, expensive hotels, meals for multi person entourages. Just this travel bill alone, exceeds hundreds of millions of forints a year. Once we have a verifiable estimate of the full costs of these junkets, paid for by Hungarian taxpayers, we shall disclose it.

The misappropriation of taxpayer’s money for partisan political purposes is coordinated from the PMO, with the active involvement of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry. The Kőrösi Csoma Program, for example is a vehicle to provide pro-Fidesz individuals/groups in Canada and elsewhere around the world with assistants for a 9 month period.

The assistants who go abroad must demonstrate party political loyalty – and once they return home, they are politically debriefed.

They must report on all their contacts, who they saw, and how they were challenged in the conduct of their work on behalf of their masters. No public records are kept of the de-briefings. They are similar in kind to the debriefings used in the Kádár era, after the state gave public funds or permits for individuals to travel abroad.

The recipients of these “assistants” are expected to sing the praises of the Orbán government in the local diaspora and in front of a larger Canadian public audience. The allocation of these “assistants” in Canada is delegated to two pro-Fidesz cronies, who sit on the so-called Diaspora Council. Pro-Fidesz officials pick the assitants, and 2 pro-Fidesz local Canadians handle the distribution. Catch 22. As the assistant State Secretary points out, Fidesz wants to register 1 million offshore voters, who do not live and do not pay taxes in Hungary but are loyal to Fidesz and can sway the outcome of any future national election. With a new and even more strongly Fidesz controlled Hungarian mass media, this charade will be given an even larger play in the state broadcasting system. More details will follow later.

András Göllner
Founder and International Spokesperson for the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter

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