In recent years, countries with a more conservative stance on the issue of migration and an open society have thoroughly experienced the election-influencing activity of pseudo-civilian political organizations and movements financed from abroad, including training activities.

Let's not argue, their main purpose is ultimately to influence the elections of sovereign nation-states.

In Hungary, before the 2014 elections, the Open Society foundation network, in addition to the support of NGOs, wanted to put actors engaged in open political activity - the Együtt party and personally former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai - in a strong position, and before 2018, it placed the responsibility on non- governmental organizations emphasis. In preparation for the spring of 2022, they intend to deploy a mixed model, similar to the one in Italy, with a more emphatic means of financing local politicians and organizations.

The essence of the model, which has been built for years, is that the NGOs can prepare for the 2022 parliamentary elections with the resources obtained from the opposition-led municipalities. They already have influence at the local and national level, they have built up their network, and they have an advantage over political parties in that they can present themselves as Hungarian civil organizations, despite their nature as agent organizations supported from abroad. Meanwhile, the theme of human rights is used for political purposes and they want to actively intervene in the local and national public affairs of a state.

We can safely say that it is difficult to imagine the application of this model in stable legal states, such as the United States. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is a US law passed in 1938 that requires agency organizations representing foreign interests in a political or quasi-political capacity to disclose such relationships and account for their financial background.

Imaad Shah Zuberi , who collapsed in a photo with President Barack Obama in the Central District of California in 2021, was sentenced to twelve years in prison - including the maximum five years provided for in the FARA law - in addition to a total of $15.7 million in damages and Ordered to pay $1.75 million in criminal fines…

... Last summer, George Floyd , journalists embedded themselves in American organizations to find out how far-left protesters are trained. Part of the "education" was the use of physical violence , as for example with the organization Refuse Fascism. According to experts, protesters in America are being consciously prepared to act violently, even against law enforcement agencies. In Hungary, the methods of Alinsky's community resistance were first used most sharply in December 2018 at the Parliament and at the headquarters of the MTVA by the Hungarian left.

In the case of attempts to influence political campaigns and elections, it is therefore important that such laws ultimately really force transparency on organizations that wish to enforce the interests of foreign interest groups, rather than community goals, in the public life of a country or a nation-state through national or municipal social influence.

And what is at least as worrying: the State Audit Office found in several cases in connection with the 2018 parliamentary elections that the use of budget support for the nominating organization was not transparent and accountable. Transparency and accountability were not achieved in all cases in the observance of the limitation on the amount of campaign expenses and in the financing bans for the purity of the elections, and these shortcomings point to the fact that in the 2022 elections, it will not only be the electoral bodies that will have to ensure the purity and integrity of the voting . .

The author is a constitutional lawyer

Cover image: Ripost

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