Peter Magyar’s Path to Power in 2026? Brussels-Based Group Could Boost Campaign Bid

A new deployment of the network: the foreign-based European Center for Digital Action (ECDA) may take the place of DatAdat. Adam Ficsor and his team are back in action.

Tisza Party chief Peter Magyar (Photo: Ferenc Isza / EC / AFP)

Long, meticulous research has made it possible to describe the actors, their network and everything that links them.

Genesis in Brussels

So what is the European Center for Digital Action?  ECDA was registered in Brussels on October 26, 2022. According to its website, it aims to collaborate with "civil society organizations and progressive political parties," providing them with training and support to "drive impactful change." The group explicitly states its mission: to equip these organizations with the necessary skills to excel in the digital space, from using cutting-edge tools and strategies to running effective fundraising programs. Their political stance is clear. In a statement from two years ago, they wrote: "Now, more than ever, we need progressive movements in Europe, where political power is shifting increasingly toward the populist right. We believe that revitalizing progressive forces through micro-donor engagement is one of the primary ways to meet this challenge." Put simply, the ECDA assists left-wing parties and movements with mobilization, digital campaigning, and fundraising to defeat their right-wing rivals.

Is Hungary and, by extension, the Orban government a target? Based on available data and traceable connections, the answer seems obvious.

DatAdat Connection Emerges

The ECDA has strong Hungarian ties—though this appears to have been deliberately downplayed. While public records list Spanish left-wing politician Mar Garcia Sanz as the founder, official documents also reveal the involvement of Adam Ficsor in its founding. As opposed to the Spanish politician, Ficsor’s background is well known in Hungary: he was Gyurcsany’s chief of staff, later Bajnai’s secret service minister, and has worked closely with the U.S. Democratic Party and global networks. He became a key player in DatAdat , a company that managed much of the Left’s 2022 campaign. Since Bajnai and others exited the company, Ficsor is now the sole owner of DatAdat Professional Kft., which was renamed a year ago.

Rolling Dollars and DatAdat

To understand DatAdat’s role, it’s essential to recall the "rolling dollars" affair. During the last Hungarian elections, roughly 4 billion forints (over USD 11 thousand) flowed from abroad to the Hungarian Left, clearly aimed at helping them defeat the right-wing government. Of the amount, 3 billion forints (about USD 8 thousand) rolled in to Hungary through the U.S.-based Action for Democracy (A4D) organization, in dollars, with most of it likely sourced from George Soros  

A 2023 investigation by Hungarian national security services found that 1.85 billion forints (about USD 5 million went to the movement (MMM) led by Peter Marki-Zay, the joint left-wing prime ministerial candidate at the time. Most of that money—1.4 billion forints (over USD 3.7 million)—ended up in DatAdat’s accounts, with A4D directly transferring an additional 148 million forints to the company. Moreover, Hungary’s left-wing media outlets, which are funded from abroad, also funneled money to DatAdat.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony and ex-Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai (Source: Facebook)

Essentially, foreign-funded DatAdat used its databases, expertise in election strategies, digital operations, and international connections to run a significant part of the Left’s 2022 campaign. A report by the Sovereignty Protection Office later revealed that DatAdat had already been involved in the 2019 municipal elections, assisting Gergely Karacsony’s successful Budapest mayoral campaign with social media outreach and mobilization tools. A leaked recording even captured Ficsor discussing how DatAdat worked in 12 other cities to support left-wing candidates.

The ECDA’s Team: Foreign and Hungarian Experts

To return to ECDA, according to the NGO's website it currently operates with a 15-member team, including Hungarian, Serbian, Australian, and Spanish experts—all of whom have significant experience in digital campaigning, fundraising, and community-building. Most of them have ties to various organizations connected to the Soros network and lean towards leftist and green politics.

Hungarian Co-Director

The organization is led by two co-directors: Mar Garcia Sanz and Viktor Mak.

Mak, during his studies in the U.S., worked briefly at CEU as a research assistant before becoming a Soros-funded scholar there in 2017. He has been actively involved in Hungarian anti-government movements, organizing protests against the so-called "slave law" in early 2019. He wrote about these experiences on Merce.hu, a news portal propagating anti-fascist and radical leftist views, and that is tied with Andras Jambor and the Szikra Movement. But speaking of anti-fascism, and only as a side note: Mak himself made the news in 2019. As a participant in an anti-fascist demonstration against the then Honor Day, he and his fellow protesters were insulted: Mak was punched and a rainbow and a student movement flag were taken away. A police report was filed, Mak was represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, and the case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. More pertinently Mak later worked at DatAdat and, in July 2024, joined Kamala Harris’s campaign team as a regional digital director, focusing on U.S. swing states.

But Mak isn’t the only Hungarian involved with ECDA.

Hardcore Leftist Figures

Among them is David Csepregi, a former Szikra Movement board member and co-founder of the 99 Movement, which supported Karacsony’s 2021 prime ministerial bid and has since been linked to a money-laundering scandal. Csepregi also co-hosts a podcast on Partizan, the left-wing media platform led by leftist activist Marton Gulyas. Csepregi is apparently supportive of Magyar, even a member of the Tisza Party’s official Facebook group, despite previously making derogatory remarks about Peter Magyar on Partizan Media.

Other Hungarian activist members include:

Dominik Kubik – former communications leader at the anti-government noAr Movement and former board member of Amnesty International Hungary, Liza Baranyai, who worked at both Amnesty International Hungary and Greenpeace, Gergely Hajdu, founder of aHang, a group responsible for running Hungary’s 2021 opposition primary elections and regularly involved in anti-government initiatives, lastly, Kinga Kalocsai – former campaign coordinator for LMP and Parbeszed, as well as a campaign manager for Andras Jambor during the opposition primaries.

The Emerging Jambor–Magyar Pact?

In writing about ECDA and staff,  the name  Andras Jambor  and the Szikra Movement comes up decidedly often. Sources within the Tisza Party suggest that Andras Jambor is actively seeking ties with Magyar. Jambor has previously referred to Magyar as the opposition’s leader and has hinted at potentially supporting him. For Jambor, aligning with Magyar could be strategic, as his party, Parbeszed, has never independently cleared the parliamentary threshold for representation and currently has no measurable public support.

Tisza Party Chief Peter Magyar (Photo: Balazs Hatlaczki/Pesti Sracok)

It would be logical, then, for Jambor to try to secure a parliamentary seat for the next term by riding on the coattails of Peter Magyar. The question, of course, is why it would be in Tisza’s interest to help a politician from Parbeszed— a party polling at zero percent— enter Parliament. According to our sources, one explanation stands out: Andras Jambor could offer his connections to the DatAdat network as a bargaining chip, which could provide significant assistance to the Tisza Party in online campaigning. This wouldn’t be the first instance of such an approach; there have been previous occasions when the world of DatAdat and Peter Magyar briefly intersected. But more on that soon.

Brussels, DatAdat, Peter Magyar 

First, let’s establish that there exists a Brussels-registered organization employing experts skilled in digital campaigning, community building, and fundraising—individuals closely tied to the progressive left and, in part, the Soros network. Importantly, one of the founders of this Brussels-based organization is also the head of the DatAdat group, which played a key role in the left’s 2022 campaign, heavily funded by foreign billions.

With that in mind, let’s examine the substantiated close connection between the ECDA and DatAdat. The Brussels-based organization uses DatAdat’s infrastructure. There have been instances where the ECDA utilized DatAdat’s donation platform, Lunda, whose data management policy listed DatAdat’s Austrian company, Estratos Digital GmbH, as the sole data controller. Estratos is a Vienna-based digital agency focused primarily on supporting progressive political movements. Its managing director is none other than Adam Ficsor.

The Same System Used by Peter Magyar

At this point, we return to Peter Magyar. On February 29 of last year, the website Talpramagyarok.hu was registered. This site introduced the community and association of Magyar, who had just stepped onto the political stage but was not yet affiliated with a party. The site's privacy policy initially listed Estratos and Lunda—both linked to DatAdat—as data controllers.

After Magyar Nemzet reported that the Bajnai-affiliated DatAdat group was backing Magyar, the privacy policy was altered, and the references to Estratos and Lunda were simply removed. Peter Magyar offered a bizarre explanation: when asked by our paper, he claimed it was just a misunderstanding. Since they didn’t want to pay for a privacy policy, they simply copied one from somewhere else—hence the DatAdat-related names appearing on their website.

This peculiar explanation, which essentially suggests plagiarism, raises the possibility that connections between the DatAdat circle and Peter Magyar’s team were established from the very beginning. Alternatively, there might not have been direct contact, but the internationally funded and largely U.S.-led progressive network may have backed Orban’s latest challenger without a formal agreement—meaning Peter Magyar’s team isn’t paying a cent for the work. Someone else is footing the bill.

Cover photo: Tisza Party chief Peter Magyar (Photo: Ferenc Isza / EC / AFP)