"Several billion forints, offshore" - 24.hu wrote an article about the background of the company called Datadat. It is written on the portal: After Viktor Orbán's third two-thirds success, several well-known and lesser-known former left-wing politicians and background figures expressed the need to refresh the domestic opposition both intellectually, technologically, and materially. Without it, according to them, Orbán is irreplaceable, Mandiner reviewed the article.
Several opposition sources include the owners of the Datadat group, such as Gordon Bajnai, Ádám Ficsor, Viktor Szigetvári, who left the front line of politics after the destruction of Együtt in 2018 (previously working on MSZP campaigns and alongside Gyurcsány and Bajnai), and Sociologist Tibor Dessewffy, former head of the Demos Foundation. By the way, Bajnai, through his company EBIT Consulting, has been the owner of the Hungarian companies Datadat Professional, Datadat Research, and Datadat HR for many years.
According to the paper's sources, Bajnai has serious business and political capital in the West, and he is able to mobilize this in order to - as an opposition politician put it to 24.hu - things go in the right direction in Hungary".
Bajnai's Homeland and Progress Foundation also benefited from HUF 100 million support from the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank linked to the Democrats.
The overseas connection has now been realized in a company-like manner at Datadat in Vienna.
At the same time, the former prime minister categorically denied to 24.hu that he had played such an international "money-raising" role in the opposition campaign.
"I do not deal with fund creation or mediation for political parties and actors, neither at home nor abroad. I supported the campaign of some opposition candidates with a personal donation of a few million forints from my savings through public micro-financing channels.
- he told the paper, self-critically noting that "given the results, the effectiveness of these subsidies can be said to be quite low". He added that in recent years, I have helped the opposition figures he considered credible by giving my opinion on the campaign, governance, especially foreign and economic policy, if asked.
According to the paper, what is known about Datadat is that it was already active before the 2019 municipal elections, the relationship with DK was particularly good, Gyurcsány's chatbot, for example, was their work. 24.hu learned that the company also helped Gergely Karácsony's 2019 campaign, and it was this victory that sparked the hope of many that the Párbeszéd politician is capable of beating Fidesz not only in Budapest, but also nationally.
Source: mandiner.hu
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