DatAdat, Opposition's Heavy Artillery, to Gear Up for Another Campaign

Although Gordon Bajnai officially left the DatAdat group, whose flagship company, founded in 2016, changed its named, the businesses are still run by trusted people from the former leftist prime minister's circle.

Manfred Weber, president of the European People’s Party, and Peter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party in Budapest (Photo: Miklos Teknos)

– At the time of the 2022 parliamentary elections, the DatAdat group was practically the campaign center of the dollar Left, and the firm also took a role in Gergely Karacsony's 2019 mayoral campaign.

– DatAdat was the biggest beneficiary of the rolling dollars: the majority of the funds coming mainly from the US, primarily from George Soros and the Democratic Party, landed there.

– Companies in the DatAdat group underwent significant changes recently.

– Gordon Bajnai, ex-prime minister, left the group.

– Adam Ficsor, Bajnai's former secret service minister, became one of DatAdat's main owners. 

– Ficsor was handpicked by the US administration under the Democrats for a leadership training program.

– Last year, an Austrian company from the DatAdat group appeared in the privacy policy of an online platform linked to Peter Magyar.

– Peter Magyar claimed this can only be attributed to a fatal coincidence. They simply copied another company's privacy policy because they didn't want to pay for it.

– It took DatAdat a long time to build up the IT background, form a team of experts, gain the necessary experience, and build up the voter databases.

– It is difficult to imagine that the opposition will participate in the 2026 election campaign without DatAdat, which has close ties not only with the Brussels elite and US Democratic Party circles, but also with George Soros's universe.

– The dollar media has helped to build Peter Magyar's political career from the outset, the question is whether DatAdat, which has managed the Left’s previous campaigns, will also pitch in, and who will foot the bill.

Last year, DatAdat Professional Kft, the company founded in 2016, underwent significant changes based on official company records. On April 15, 2024, its name was changed to AVSF Magyarország Kft. Although the company’s headquarters in Budapest remained unchanged, the ownership structure was narrowed down to a single company: AVSF AssetManagement GmbH, registered at the Vienna address of Adam Ficsor. This means that, along with the name change, former left-wing Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai—whose Ebit Consulting Kft. exited the company—along with several prominent figures from the pre-2010 Socialist- Free Democrats (MSZP–SZDSZ) era, including Viktor Szigetvari and Tibor Dessewffy, are no longer owners of the former DatAdat Professional Kft.

The sole owner of the company, operating under the name AVSF Magyarorszag Kft since last April, is Adam Ficsor, who was former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's chief of staff and then Bajnai Gordon's secret service minister. According to the latest company data, alongside Ficsor, Viktor Szigetvari, who joined DatAdat Professional Kft in 2020,  is the other managing director of the renamed company. Szigetvari is also an old left-wing cadre, having been a confidant of Ferenc Gyurcsany in the 2000s, then Gordon Bajnai's chief of staff. After the change of government, they worked together in the left-wing party called Egyutt (Together).

It is also noteworthy that Bajnai Gordon’s Ebit Consulting Kft and Adam Ficsor have exited the ownership of another company in the group, Datalyze Research Kft, leaving Tibor Dessewffy as the sole owner.

Also a founder of DatAdat, Tibor Dessewffy was the former head of Demos, considered the think tank of Gyurcsany's government. He is also a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of ELTE University. Dessewffy's university research work as the head of ELTE's Digital Sociology Research Centre fits perfectly into the company's profile (database building, voter profiling).

Bajnai the go-between

The key figure in the DatAdat group is Gordon Bajnai, the former left-wing prime minister, who has extensive international connections, especially with globalist financial and political circles in Western Europe and the United States. These connections were most vividly described by "old battlefield buddy" Gyula Gansperger in one of the leaked recordings exposing the attempted sale of the Budapest City Hall. “In Hungary, – I think – there are basically foreign forces and financiers behind the moves of the whole opposition. (…) Who are these forces?” Mr Gansperger asks the question, and then answers it: “One of these is, let’s put it this way, the Soros Empire.

Photo: Bela Nagy

"The other part is composed of big-capital groups, that is, from Germany and especially the United States, who want to have influence here. I think Gordon  is their man. Not in the negative sense of the word. No. He is the minister, or former minister, who keeps in touch with these people. Obviously not (…) with Agent 007, as these people are all presidents and other key figures, I don’t know who, but there’s a set system (…) Everything that this camp receives, no matter what Gyurcsany and the others say, comes from abroad. Otherwise, this wouldn't have come together like semolina pudding."

WikiLeaks: Ficsor was handpicked

For a few sentences, it’s worth recalling that alongside Gordon Bajnai, Adam Ficsor also worked closely with the US Democratic Party and the global network that financed the organization. This was confirmed by documents released by WikiLeaks. Among other things, the documents revealed that the US embassy maintained a good relationship with Adam Ficsor and recommended him for the US State Department's leadership program for foreigners.

Photo: Magyar Nemzet/Peter Mate

The recommendation was also sent to the CIA and the defense department. Ficsor eventually became the minister for intelligence in Bajnai’s government formed in 2009, but he held the position for only five months. The true reason for his unexpected departure could have been that he accepted the invitation, though there is no specific information on this.

Changes around  Oraculum

Let's get return to the money coming from abroad!  In addition to DatAdat, we also reviewed the status of Oraculum 2020 Kft, another company involved in the dollar Left’s 2022 foreign financing scandal. The Hungarian website hovege.hu, formerly published by Oraculum, has been operated since May 22, 2024 by the Austrian association KommKlar - Verein zur Information uber soziale Angebote und Hilfestellungen, which is also mentioned in the privacy policy.

According to Austria's official database for civil sector organizations and associations, the association was registered on April 12, 2024, at a Vienna address.

The individuals leading the Austrian organization are noteworthy. The leader is Dr Istvan Molnar, a former owner of DatAdat Professional Kft and DatAdat Research Kft, as well as the current owner of Eagle Eye Marketing Kft, registered in Kutaso. His law office at 16-18 Dohány Street in Budapest remains the headquarters of Oraculum 2020 Kft.

The deputy of the Vienna-based organization is Ferenc Hammer, a lecturer at ELTE’s Department of Media and Communication. Hammer, who spent several years in the United States and England on scholarships, was a founding member of Tilos Radio, and is a close friend of aforementioned Tibor Dessewffy from DatAdat.

Hammer has been a speaker at numerous opposition protests in the past and has been cited as a sociologist and media researcher. He gave an interview denigrating the government to 24.hu before the 2018 elections and is frequently interviewed by the left-wing media. Hammer was also in charge of the Erosito website, created to disseminate  articles from "independent media" for the 2022 elections. The website was published by Amplify OU, a company linked to DatAdat’s Estonian operations. In addition, Hammer is a board member of the Media Universalis Foundation, which participated in the creation of the Hungarian-language fact-checking website created by 444.hu and Magyar Jeti Zrt, with the support of the European Commission.  Te foundation was responsible for the research work.

Defunct and "dormant" propaganda outlets

Apart from the Hovege.hu portal, nearly all the websites and Facebook pages linked to Oraculum 2020 Kft, which were created for the 2022 elections (Pegazus.info; Gyerekkelvagyunk.hu; Roviden.info; EzVan.tv; Covidoltas.info), have ceased operations. Others (NERpedia, Velemeny Klub) have not been updated since the elections. However, the coordinated Facebook pages created for meme spreading (Receptek.ma; Idezo; Idezetek.ma; Humor magazin; Vicc magazin) remain active.

Rolling dollars

In light of all this, it can be suspected that in the future, we will hear from the propaganda sites coordinated by the DatAdat group, which has been partially renamed and has undergone changes in ownership, or  by Oraculum 2020 Kft.

Therefore, it is worth recalling how foreign funding from circles around the US Democratic Party was organized for the 2022 election campaign and how millions of dollars were funneled into their interests. According to the intelligence report published in the summer of 2023, opposition prime ministerial candidate Peter Marki-Zay's Everyone’s Hungary Movement (Mindenki Magyarorszaga Mozgalom, MMM) received  1.85 billion forints in several tranches from overseas through Action for Democracy (A4D), an organization founded in the United States by David Koranyi. However, the majority of the funds did not stay with MMM. More than 1.4 billion forints were transferred from MMM to the DatAdat group's accounts. A4D also kdirectly funded DatAdat with 148 million forints. Moreover, a third financial channel opened between A4D and Bajnai’s circles, this one led through Oraculum 2020 Kft.

This company is the business of a former socialist consultant, Zoltan Pava. Oraculum operated the defamation portal called EzaLenyeg, which sought to 

influence voters in campaign-like, paid advertisements in 2019 and 2022. Oraculum received one billion forints from the Koranyi's circle, but 324 million of this was transferred to DatAdat. The Pava and his associates also received 887 million forints from a Swiss foundation.

Campaigning for Gergely Karacsony in 2019 

Last year's report by the Sovereignty Protection Office revealed that DatAdat appeared in the mayoral campaign as early as 2019. According to the disclosed documents, the same group provided funding and technical support for Gergely Karacsony’s 2019 municipal campaign. The DatAdat group, associated with Gordon Bajnai and his trusted associates, made a comprehensive offer that included a social media campaign and the tools necessary for voter mobilization to help Karacsony win the Budapest mayoral post.

Index reported in 2022 that DatAdat worked for the leftist-liberal parties and mayoral candidates in 12 additional locations during the municipal elections, in addition to supporting Karacsony.

Did Peter Magyar and his group want to avoid paying?

It seems there’s nothing new under the sun: figures linked to DatAdat Professional Kft - much like the dollar media do - regularly appear behind so-called left-wing "messiahs". In April of last year, Peter Magyar officially entered the political arena by forming a community and association and taking over an existing political party. The Talpramagyarok.hu website, registered on February 29, 2024, was created to present this community and association.

The DatAdat group appeared in the privacy policy of the website, which mentioned two entities linked to the group. One was Estratos Digital GmbH, a Vienna-based digital agency focused on supporting progressive political movements. Its managing director is no other than AdamnFicsor, former secret service minister in Gordon Bajnai’s government and a leading figure in the DatAdat group. The other entity mentioned was Lunda, a fundraising platform entirely created by DatAdat.

However, following an article by Magyar Nemzet that exposed this connection, references to DatAdat were removed from the website, and the two business entities disappeared from the privacy policy. Peter Magyar then offered a bizarre explanation: in response to questions from our newspaper, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding. He said they had borrowed the privacy policy from someone else due to time constraints, which is how the two companies ended up on their website.

Given the unconvincing explanation, it’s reasonable to assume that Peter Magyar’s group and the DatAdat network had already got into contact behind the scenes. It would come as no surprise if the campaign machinery described above, which has gained plenty of experience in previous elections, were made available to the Tisza Party by those foreign power groups whose trusted figures include Gordon Bajnai's associates.

Attacks from Brussels

At this point, it is worth recalling that last October, the Sovereignty Protection Office warned that since the European Parliament elections, efforts within the EU's institutional system aimed at directly attacking the sovereignty of member states—particularly Hungary's constitutional identity—have intensified. According to its statement, "Manfred Weber, president of the European People's Party (EPP), made it clear in his speech in the European Parliament that he considers the removal of Hungary’s lawfully elected government as his main task for the upcoming period. The European People's Party went even further recently by making an unprecedented call for the resignation of the Hungarian Prime Minister."

Weber had previously expressed his antipathy toward Hungary with complete openness: "I voted against Hungary in the Article 7 vote. Not against Fidesz, nor Viktor Orban, but against the whole country!" It is evident that this is not merely a partisan or ideological struggle, but a concerted effort by these actors to restrict Hungary's sovereignty and illegitimately interfere in the country’s internal affairs, as only Hungarian voters have the right to decide who leads their country.

The love affair

As is known, the MEPs of the Tisza Party are members of the European People's Party. Zoltan Tarr said the following about the relationship between the EPP and Tisza: "From the very first moment, we were welcomed and supported with great love. It felt like visiting a family you hadn’t seen in a long time after wandering the world for years or like meeting a family for the first time through a romantic relationship and becoming one with that family." Tarr, a close confidant of Peter Magyar, added that it was self-evident from the outset, once they decided to enter European politics, that they needed to belong to the People's Party.

It is also widely known that part of the campaign funds and support that previously came largely from George Soros’ network now flow from Brussels to so-called civil sector organizations, associations, and media outlets. This is realistic, especially considering that data leaked by DC Leaks in 2016 showed that out of the 751 members of the European Parliament at the time, 226 MEPs politicians could be classified as Soros's "reliable allies." In other words, even years ago, the stock exchange speculator was able to mobilize more representatives on certain issues than the then largest EPP group.

Waiting for taking action

Finally, the question arises: is it possible that the DatAdat group will stay out of the 2026 parliamentary election campaign? Our sources consider this to be practically impossible. They argue that creating such a system is extremely costly. Establishing the IT infrastructure, assembling a team of experts, gaining the necessary experience, and building voter databases is a lengthy process.

However, DatAdat has been in possession of all these resources for years, meaning it can be considered a heavily armed force with both domestic and international references.

The Datadat group, which maintains excellent relationship with the circles of the US Democrats  and the current Brussels elite, will likely be indispensable to the opposition. It is significant to note that when the Republican Trump administration came to power, it immediately froze the operations of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a government body known for regularly interfering in the internal affairs of foreign countries. This quick action cut off significant funding for the so-called "dollar media." The only question is how DatAdat will get involved in helping Peter Magyar and his party, in what form, and with whose money.