Just Like at Home, the Bajnai Circle’s Election Manipulation Efforts Have Failed in Poland Too

Following Hungary’s 2022 elections, the DatAdat group associated with Gordon Bajnai has now attempted to interfere in the Polish presidential election. In both cases of attempted manipulation, the U.S.-based organization Action for Democracy also appeared as a funding source. And the outcome was the same in both instances: the interference attempts failed. In Hungary, the Orban government emerged victorious, while in Poland, the right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki won, handing a significant defeat to the left.

Former Hungarian PM Gordon Bajnai (Photo: MTI)

It’s worth recalling that Action for Democracy and the DatAdat circle have previously worked together. During Hungary’s most recent parliamentary election, the domestic left received approximately four billion forints in foreign funding aimed at toppling the right-wing government. Of this, three billion forints—converted to dollars—flowed to Hungary via Action for Democracy. The bulk of the funds reportedly originated from George Soros and largely ended up with the DatAdat group of companies.

Hungarian Connections

It’s also notable that Estratos has also appeared on Peter Magyar's radar. On February 29, 2023, the website Talpramagyarok.hu was registered — this was the platform that introduced the public movement or association of Peter Magyar, who at the time was still unaffiliated with any political party. In its privacy policy, both Estratos and its donation platform Lunda were listed as data controllers. After our paper reported on the DatAdat group’s appearance behind Mr. Magyar, the privacy policy was altered to remove any mention of Estratos and Lunda from the document. Later, Peter Magyar offered a far-fetched explanation for the change.