The legislative bodies have two, two and a half months to rewrite the rules for next year's local government election, it was revealed in Thursday's Government Information. The purpose of the change is to prevent civil organizations from abroad from receiving money for the campaign, i.e. to prevent a repeat of last year's scandal involving the dollar left.

This kind of work is underway - this is what Gergely Gulyás answered on Thursday's Kormányinfo, when Mediaworks inquired whether the development of the legislation that would prevent non-governmental organizations funded from abroad from running candidates in next year's local government elections has begun. In addition, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office also reported that the development of the new rules will be completed soon. –

We do not sell sacks, our goal is to enforce the rule of the party law, which has not changed since 1989, that no money can be accepted from abroad for all nominating organizations, stated the head of the ministry.

He added that the local authority voting will take place at the end of May or the beginning of June next year, at the same time as the European Parliament elections, so the next two to two and a half months are available for the necessary legislative work. They insist on maintaining the principle that they do not touch the election rules in the last year before the polls.

The legislation would prevent a scandal similar to the rolling dollars from happening again in this country. According to the current rules, nominating organizations cannot accept financial support from abroad for parliamentary elections. In comparison, at the time of last year's parliamentary vote, about four billion forints came from abroad to various left-wing actors.

Out of this money, 1.8 billion forints worth of dollars flowed from America to the Meninki Magyarországa Mozgalom (MMM), founded by the former left-wing prime ministerial candidate Péter Márki-Zay, through the Action for Democracy foundation. The MMM is not a party, but according to some data and statements, the movement paid for certain campaign expenses of the rainbow coalition, which could have been a violation of the law.

A secret service investigation was launched to reveal the circumstances of the exercise of foreign influence that violates Hungary's sovereignty, and several partial reports have already come to light. However, the research did not end, and the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) also started proceedings.

So far, all that is known about this is that the ÁSZ also found invoices based on which it is suspected that the accounts violate not only the party financing law, but also the taxation system. The Audit Office therefore requests information from the tax office. More details may be revealed on Monday, as the Economic Committee of the Parliament will hold a meeting then, and the first item on the agenda will be discussing the report of the President of the SAO on the investigation into the dollar left.

It can also be assumed that dozens of organizations similar to MMM will be able to support candidates in the 2024 municipal elections.

In the municipal elections, not only parties can run candidates, as in parliamentary elections, but also civilians. A good example of this is that in the previous local government election, various civil organizations ran candidates in a total of eight cities with county rights. The MMM was also among the organizations nominating Péter Márki-Zay in 2019, but the Szegedért Egyesület, which supports Mayor László Botka in the revival, and Éljen Szombathely! which was behind András Nemény of the MSZP, along with several other parties.

Source: Hungarian Nation

Featured image: Origo/Sándor Csudai