Pro-Fidesz film producer elaborates on his attack on Fidesz oligarchs
August 21st, 2023László Pesty likens a whole group of influential oligarchs to early 20th-century Sicilian mafiosi and urges the Fidesz leadership to get rid of them.
In a long interview with Magyar Hang, László Pesty says several Fidesz luminaries including cabinet ministers have welcomed his revelations about what he called ‘a group of criminals who enrich themselves by ruining honest entrepreneurs and in doing so discredit the patriotic conservative and Christian values Fidesz stands for’. (For the antecedents, see BudaPost, August 10.) He explains that such people approach honest entrepreneurs and tell them that they had better include them in their businesses, in other words, share their property with them. ‘This is pure 1923 Sicily style’, he remarks. He personally knows one of the victims, he says, a conservative Christian entrepreneur who has been ruined by one such oligarch, whom he doesn’t mention by name, in order not to be sued by him. Meanwhile, he suggests, convincing evidence exists in the form of documents and video recordings which prove him right, but which will only be published if the victims of the oligarchs’ machinations so decide. He invites other law graduates like himself, within and around Fidesz, to join him in raising their voices in order to cleanse the party he belongs to. He adds that he is launching a website where anyone can report cases of corruption and hopes to find out whether a ‘Hungarian octopus’ actually exists. When asked whether Fidesz followers who have been disappointed are right in feeling to have been betrayed by Fidesz, Pesty answers in the affirmative. He believes the Fidesz rank-and-file have not revolted against the oligarchs because they didn’t want to ‘play into the hands’ of ‘lousy Brusselites’, ‘abject Washingtonians’, or Hungarian left-wingers. He urges them, however, to come forward now and speak out, because ‘this is how they can protect their wealth, their families and their honour’. In his concluding remarks, Pesty says he doesn’t fear reprisals and is confident that his various initiatives promoting the conservative Christian and patriotic cause will continue to be funded by the government.