There Is That Kind of Money’: Peter Magyar’s MEPs Silent Under His Orders

Tisza Party MEPs have been tight-lipped for days about the latest Peter Magyar scandal in which a leaked recording reveals the party leader calling his own MEPs brain-dead and Soros agents. Their silence is hardly surprising as, according to the audio recording, Peter Magyar had also explicitly banned his politicians from making public statements.

Hungarian Tisza Party leader and MEP: Peter Magyar (Photo: Mediaworks/Gabor Markovics)

This time the chairman of the Hungarian opposition Tisza Party can be heard lambasting - punctuated by obscene terminology - his own party's European Parliamentary candidates. In one of the recordings, Peter Magyar was outraged that his candidate had made a statement to the press despite his explicit orders forbidding it. He called the person brain-dead, adding that

I wrote in Hungarian that he could not comment. I understand that he is a Soros agent and does not speak Hungarian...

He then explained that their standings in the campaign were too good and that their candidates could only harm them, which is why it would be better if they did not speak out and jeopardize the outcome.

In the other part of the recording, Magyar was talking to his now ex-girlfriend specifically about Viktor Weisz. He said the party's MEP candidate was "totally unfit to be a politician, but would be good as a photographer". When Evelin Vogel asked the party chief if he liked Weisz, Magyar replied,

I don't like either of them, they are all so untalented.

He then goes on to explain that they [the Tisza Party] didn't have the opportunity or the time to select better, more qualified people, and that his candidates have contributed nothing to the campaign. To Vogel's suggestion that they may have added something to the campaign, Magyar reacted irritably,

But they can't, because they're all incompetent, none of them can speak. One of them is holding the microphone like this, and is shaking like this, he was totally done,

he disparaged his own candidate.

Peter Magyar summed up the situation, saying

They are all totally inept politically, and I'm making them all MEPs.

Magyar Nemzet's correspondent in Brussels contacted the party's representatives to ask them to respond to the insults and humiliating remarks. The representatives of the Tisza Party did not react at first, and then several of them repeated the statement put out by their party leader, saying that the recording was illegally obtained, edited and manipulated. It is clear from their reactions that for eight to ten million forints (19-25 thousand euros), the left-wing party's MEPs will even put up with being called brain-dead and Soros assets by Peter Magyar.

Magyar Nemzet also contacted Viktor Weisz, who Peter Magyar mentioned by name in the second audio recording, calling him an incompetent politician, but we received no reply.

The silence of Tisza Party politicians indicates that they are likely still barred on orders from Peter Magyar from making statements to the press, even when they are humiliated by their own party leader.

At Thursday's Government Info, in response to our question on whether this behavior had always been characteristic of Peter Magyar, the head of the  PM's Office, Gergely Gulyas, who used to be on friendly terms with the party leader said,

I agreed with Peter Magyar on some things, and we disagreed on others. We were in complete agreement on him being crazy.

Cover photo: Hungarian Tisza Party leader and MEP: Peter Magyar (Photo: Mediaworks/Gabor Markovics)