Even his own allies do not believe Gergely Karácsony that the 99 Movement, founded for his primary election campaign, collected HUF 506 million in donation boxes from micro-donations.
Karácsony may also weaken his negotiating position within the opposition before next year's municipal election if he does not sufficiently clarify the origin of the money. On the opposition side, they are afraid that there will be a continuation of the story, just as the investigations of the ÁSZ and the NAV are hovering over the parties like pallos. Scandals can exacerbate conflicts between opposition parties, while they remain interdependent due to electoral rules.
Where did 506 million forints come from for the 99 Movement marked by the name of Gergely Karácsony? The 99 Movement appeared as a secondary thread in the report of the secret service investigation on the campaign financing of the opposition coalition, which was made public at the end of June.
The movement was created for the prime ministerial candidate campaign of Gergely Karácsony before the primary election, the list of founders included many well-known artists, economic and public figures. The goal was that after Karácsony's victory in the primaries, which at the time seemed almost certain, there would be a cross-party, national umbrella organization that anyone could join regardless of party preference. However, the mayor withdrew before the second round of the primary election in favor of Péter Márki-Zay, and the 99 Movement quickly died out after that.
However, the name of the organization has now surfaced again more than a year and a half after the primary election: according to the National Information Center (NIK), the movement paid HUF 616.5 million to DatAdat, which also helped the opposition coalition campaign by building a database, providing communication advice, and organizing a social media-based campaign. . The company's ownership includes several well-known public figures, among others former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, Ádám Ficsor, the Minister of Secrets of the Bajnai government, and Viktor Szigetvári, the former founder of the now-defunct Együtt party.
Examining the account of the association, NIK found that between the end of August 2021 and September 2022, Gábor Perjés paid a total of HUF 506 million in 19 installments, Párbeszéd II. district municipal representative, executive director of the association. A significant part of the payments was made in foreign currency: Perjés deposited 917,000 euros and 3,900 British pounds into the bank account.
The mayor first came up with a brief explanation on his Facebook page that the association "collected micro-donations through a closed collection box in accordance with the relevant legislation". The donations were then paid into the bank account of the association by the executive director of the association, Perjés.
However, the rather hard-to-believe explanation is that more money was thrown into the donation boxes displayed at campaign events in a few months than the nine parliamentary parties, including Fidesz, collected in total from membership fees (HUF 357 million) in 2022.
Another questionable detail is that Perjés deposited most of the "micro-donations" in the bank after Karácsony's resignation - in fact, nearly 127 million already after the parliamentary elections. According to the secret service report, moreover, more than ninety percent of the data orders were realized after Karácsony's withdrawal.
"I think this explanation is humiliatingly unbelievable for opposition voters. A farce, a farce," commented Péter Ungár on the first post of Karácsony. According to the co-chairman of the LMP, not only the mayor must give an explanation, but also "the eternal advisers hiding behind the whole political project, the shadow people who imagine themselves to be powerful".
DK and Jobbik are also waiting for an explanation from the mayor. "Gergely Kárácsony, Gordon Bajnai, Viktor Szigetvári and the other left-wing politicians who had something to do with this must clarify the situation. We don't want to take responsibility for something we didn't participate in and weren't a part of," Jobbik's press department wrote.
"The DK was not aware of the hundreds of millions of HUF in support of the 99 Movement (...) we await the mayor's detailed, public information," said the DK's press department.
Momentum considers the issue an internal matter of the 99 Movement. János Kele, member of the party's presidency, confirmed that they also only learned about the 506 million grant from the press. According to our information, the huge financial resources of the movement came as a complete surprise to the MSZP and the LMP, even though, in addition to Párbeszéd, these two parties supported Gergely Karácsony in the prime ministerial candidate primaries.
"Even weeks after the primary election, we were arguing about HUF 3-4 million stage bills," said a politician from one of the opposition parties supporting Karácsony, who requested anonymity. He has no idea what the movement's support went to, according to him, the 500 million forints should have appeared in Karácsony's prime ministerial candidate campaign, but he did not feel that compared to the other prime ministerial candidates, the mayor had a much bigger financial background behind him.
"Our candidate was Gergő, and I don't know as much about the 99 Movement as you do," said another opposition politician, who complains that Karácsony and his staff do not even provide information about the case to the parties supporting him after the scandal broke out.
According to Karácsony, there are no surprises or things to see here, but he can hardly influence the political consequences of the case so easily. You can easily lose your political credibility if, according to your voters, you cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of the origin and use of the money, on the other hand, it can also make it difficult for you to run for mayor next year if the investigation by the secret service comes up with more and more developments in the future.
