The ÁSZ fines the dollar left for hundreds of millions for foreign campaign support.

The Audit Office already indicated in the summer that, according to their investigation, illegal campaign financing had taken place.

The State Audit Office imposed a fine of more than HUF 500 million on six left-wing parties running in the 2022 parliamentary elections

Origo reported about it .

According to the portal, it is

however, now only a 260 million subsidy was investigated, in Hungary, the left-wing parties can expect further penalties, the auditor's office will continue to check the subsidies received. As is well known, the latter received about HUF 4 billion in 2022 from unknown donors from overseas.

This means a penalty of approximately 43.5 million per party, but in such cases the ÁSZ and the Hungarian State Treasury withhold the amount equal to the penalty from the state aid due to the given party, i.e. the parties actually have to reimburse double the mentioned amount.

László Windisch, the president of the ÁSZ, already spoke last November about the investigation of the American support provided to Péter Márki-Zay's movement.

And the possibility of sanctioning certainly did not come as a surprise to the opposition, since they already received the draft report in June, from which they could learn: according to the investigation by the Audit Office

prohibited party financing was implemented during the 2022 parliamentary election campaign,

if Péter Márki-Zay's hallmark of the Prime Minister candidate at the time, the Everybody's Hungary Movement (MMM), paid for certain details of the opposition campaign. According to the ÁSZ, the amount that was financed from foreign sources through MMM can be estimated at about 1.7 billion forints, and the penalty is double that according to the law, i.e. almost 3.4 billion forints.

Regarding opposition campaign support, László Windisch spoke earlier in the parliament about the fact that around HUF 1.7-1.8 billion in illegal campaign financing was established on the side of his opposition coalition, which came to the other parties through Péter Márki-Zay's movement.

As to why the National Tax and Customs Administration is also investigating last year's campaign financing, the President of the ÁSZ said:

there are approximately HUF 300 million worth of services where MMM has contracted directly to provide a service; for a led wall for their rally, for buses to transport people there, for distribution devices.

We have the certificates of completion, the contracts, the invoices, so we are talking about clear campaign support and campaign activity. But there is a contract and invoice worth approximately 1.4 billion, which MMM also spent on campaign activities based on the contract, for which it also contracted directly with the service providers,

but for some reason not with the service providers, but with an Austrian company, and then the money received from abroad was transferred abroad for some reason.

- said the president of the ÁSZ. At the same time, he added that, of course, foreign ltd. he does not discuss with the State Audit Office, so he is not willing to clarify whether the economic events included in the invoice and performance certificate in his contract are real.

Featured image: MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry