Budapest, Hungary. Media executive Gyula Balasy has offered to hand over his companies and some investments to the Hungarian state as a new government prepares to take office following last month’s election.
Offer announced in Kontroll interview
Balasy, owner of several media companies that have designed government campaigns for more than a decade, made the offer in a video interview late on Monday on news site Kontroll. He said he was offering the group of companies he had built over 22 years, which currently perform events, communications and media purchasing tasks for the state and government, to the Hungarian state.
Balasy said he was not making the offer because he had something to hide or because his companies had done anything unlawful or wrong. He said he believed the activities performed for the state went beyond market communication activities and therefore belonged inside the public sector budget.
Political context after election
The offer marks the first major shift by a top business leader close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which was ousted after 16 years in an election last month.
Peter Magyar, leader of the centre-right opposition Tisza party, is set to take his oath as prime minister on May 9. Magyar has pledged to review state contracts, clamp down on corruption and “reacquire stolen state assets” as part of the campaign that delivered a landslide victory.
Past work and contract claims
Balasy’s firms designed Orban’s anti-Ukraine election campaign, which framed the April vote as a choice between war and peace, and also worked on anti-immigration campaigns. Balasy said his companies won state procurement contracts that were “entirely transparent.”
Balasy also said the accounts of several of his companies had been frozen last Monday, without specifying which authority froze them.
Reactions from Tisza party figures
Magyar briefly commented on the interview on Facebook on Monday, saying of Orban’s allies, “this system could collapse much faster than anyone would think.”
Mark Radnai, vice chairman of the Tisza party, said: “This is the man who we have known as Fidesz’s billboard maker, and who in the past eight years has practically dominated the entire market of state communication.”
What impact do you think the proposed transfer of Balasy’s companies could have on Hungary’s state communications work?
