Commentators believe the government is taking the scandalous developments seriously but are not yet sure about the consequences. In his last published comment before his death, a right-wing columnist scorns the left for seeking foreign help in the light of its successive electoral defeats.

In the latest developments concerning the entry ban imposed by the US State Department on Hungarian personalities (six of them, as it turned out on Monday), Index and Átlátszó suggest that the accusation of attempted bribery originates from Bunge, a US based multinational producing cooking oil in Hungary. They suspect that Bunge was offered favourable treatment by the Tax Authority in exchange for thinly veiled bribes to influential think tanks. Népszabadság’s sources reported that PM Orbán was furious about the scandal, as he was not informed about the gathering storm in advance.

In Magyar Narancs, Attila Ara-Kovács, the main foreign policy expert of Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition party, is certain that a political decision was taken in Washington “which will prevent the plundering of Hungary by Fidesz from continuing undisturbed”. He speculates that influential tycoons will thus see in the Prime Minister and his regime an obstacle to their own prosperity. “And this is just the beginning. And not just in Washington, but in Brussels and in Berlin as well”, he predicts.

On Cink, István Szily thinks the government has been frightened by the tough American measures and believes this is why its representatives do not aggressively reciprocate the attack as they usually do. On the contrary, he remarks, Mr Lázár, the Cabinet Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s office reiterated “thirty times that America is our friend.”

In his last Magyar Hírlap column, just hours before his death in hospital on Monday, Péter Szentmihályi Szabó accuses the left-wing press of producing a series of conspiracy theories in the wake of the announcement of the entry ban imposed on six Hungarian citizens. If the Left were truly concerned about Hungary’s fate and future, Szentmihályi Szabó argues, instead of “imploring foreign and European parliamentary parties for help”, they would be “actively helping the governing party” and help Hungary “follow its road”.