Hungarian PM Rocked By Public Protests Over Grafts Leak Case

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban faced a show of public dissent as thousands of people took to the streets demanding that he resign. According to a Reuters report, the protests come after a foreign government insider accused Orban’s senior aide of trying to interfere in a graft case.

The crisis erupted after Peter Magyar, a former government insider made a secret recording of his now ex-wife Judt Varga of a conversation they had at home. In the recording now made public, Varga had stated that there was wrongdoing on the part of the prime minister.

Reacting to the leak Varga accused Magyar of domestic violence and said that he had been blackmailing her for a year with the tape. “Shocking. Peter Magyar has now done it. He has been blackmailing me with that for a year, “And now he has used it for political purposes,” Varga said. “A person like that is not worthy of any kind of trust,” she added in the post.

Post the release of the tape, protesters demanded the resignation of Orban, as well as his chief prosecutor. Analysts say this is the biggest shock to the prime minister who has been ruling in Hungary since 2010. However, such protests have been growing in Hungary. In February outrage erupted after Orban issued a pardon to a person imprisoned for covering up a child-sex abuse racket. According to an Al Jazeera  report, the scandal caused many ministers including Varga to resign.

In an interview with AFP Magyar stated his aim was to bring down the “Orban power factory,” as he was sick of the mass corruption of the government.