(Adnkronos) – The Hungarian Parliament has elected the country’s new prosecutor general as part of Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s offensive to hold former nationalist leader Viktor Orban and his allies accountable for alleged corruption. The nine-year term went to Peter Fejes, a recently retired career prosecutor. In the background, high-level corruption investigations are accelerating: three former ministers are in custody, including a former central bank governor whom Orban had called his “right-hand man”.
In a secret ballot, Fejes obtained 139 votes in favor and six against in the 199-seat Parliament, where Magyar’s party, Tisza, holds more than two-thirds. Fidesz, Orban’s party, and its ally Kdnp (Christian Democratic People’s Movement) boycotted the vote. “On behalf of all Hungarians, I wish you the greatest success. Tremble, thieves! And all other criminals too,” Magyar declared via social media, shortly after Fejes’s swearing-in.
Public trust in prosecutors eroded during Orban’s 16 years in government, with critics accusing the highly centralized institution of protecting the premier’s inner circle. Fejes, 65, stated his intention to regain lost trust, also by emphasizing legal work “free from politics.” In Parliament, after the election, he apologized for “some decisions recently made by the Prosecutor’s Office, or for its inertia, which have justifiably and reasonably offended the public’s sense of justice.”
Last month, Parliament had rejected the first candidate proposed by President Andras Baka, following news of a link between his brother and the so-called “gold convoy” case. Before the April legislative elections, lost by Orban to Magyar, Hungarian security forces had stopped vehicles of a Ukrainian state bank transiting the country, detained seven employees, and seized millions of dollars and euros and gold bars. The tax authority had spoken of a money laundering investigation, but those detained were quickly released, the assets returned, and the case eventually closed. A separate inquiry was opened into alleged rights violations during the operation.
In June, the prosecutor in charge of that investigation, Pal Furcht, resigned, later alleging that his superiors had obstructed his work and that evidence pointed to Orban as the mastermind of the operation. Lawyer Lorant Horvath, who represents both Furcht and the bank employees, told AFP he hoped Fejes would investigate, adding: “Our biggest concern is that the prosecutor general’s office played an active role” in the operation. Former prosecutor general Gabor Balint Nagy had resigned in July under pressure from Magyar, who promised a “regime change”.
Other investigations have gained momentum after Orban’s fall. Former central bank governor and former economy minister Gyorgy Matolcsy was arrested last month for “economic fraud with particularly large financial losses,” while an international arrest warrant was issued against his son Adam, a suspected accomplice. Two other former ministers have been in custody since September. Orban called the inquiries “politically motivated.” According to Horvath, prosecutors have so far “only touched the bare minimum,” while the new anti-corruption head, Anna Unger, warned that convictions could take years. A government website lists over 60 cases forwarded to investigators, involving billions of euros of public money.
