The co-chairman of the Párbeszéd Magyarországért Party, the first person in Budapest, spent the most money on Facebook among the opposition prime ministerial candidates. Although the exact amount cannot be known yet, Gergely Karácsony and the 99 Movement Association behind it, which claims to be a civilian, also spent significant sums on the giant poster campaign.

According to the expert interviewed by Mandiner, the costs of the latter may be higher than the HUF 25 million per month mentioned by the organization. It should be noted that prior to the mayor's resignation on October 8, Péter Márki-Zay spoke about the fact that the campaign budget for Karácsony could be around 500 million.

The left-wing city manager explained to questions about campaign costs:

"The money I spent in the primary campaign built the policy I represented in the first round. And now I am here to hand over this policy, its baton, to someone whom I know will reach the goal."

In response to the portal's repeated inquiries, the Office of the Mayor announced on October 14:

"We will make the campaign expenses public by the statutory deadline, next week the expenses of the 99 Movement will be public on the website of the movement."

This has not happened to date, and the organization does not respond in writing to Mandiner's inquiries.

The phone of the civil movement rang in the party headquarters

"There is a need for communities that think and act together on our common issues," reads the creed of 99, implying that it is a civil initiative. – (…) In the spirit of this, we are launching the 99 Movement. Anyone who is a believer and supporter of change and the reunification of Hungary can join our community."

However, as Mandiner found out, the telephone contact number contact telephone number of Párbeszéd . When we inquired about Karácsony's campaign budget at 99, we received the information via the phone that rang at the office of the party's representatives that we would also send our questions to the Párbeszéd e-mail address. We did this:

  1. When will the exact numbers of Gergely Karácsony's primary election campaign budget be made public?
  2. On which interface will this data be displayed?
  3. When will the supporters of the 99 Movement be revealed?
  4. Has Péter Márki-Zay already joined the 99 Movement?
  5. Will the 99 Movement and Párbeszéd financially support Péter Márki-Zay's campaign for prime minister?

However, we did not receive any answers regarding the campaign budget from the Karácsony party either.

When asked why the contact number listed in 99's data protection information is the same as Párbeszéd's contact number, the party's administrator stated: they do not manage the organization's data, the party is independent from 99.

Party funding trick

Dániel Deák, the XXI. The senior analyst of Szazad Intézet previously suggested to our portal: by creating 99, the Karácsonys bypassed official party and campaign financing, which, for example, prohibits the acceptance of foreign donations and money. In the case of the organization, however, there is no such stipulation, so according to the expert, the mayor could even use foreign funds from the Soros network for his own campaign.

Source: mandiner.hu