Hungary’s Political Financing Problems Drive Corruption Issues

2012. szeptember 17. 09:10

The country has passed new anti-corruption laws, but enforcement hasn’t followed.

2012. szeptember 17. 09:10
Samuel Rubenfeld

"Hungary doesn’t have the SuperPACs of the U.S., but it certainly has a political financing problem that some experts place at the center of the nation’s corruption challenges. The country has passed new anti-corruption laws, but enforcement hasn’t followed. Last week, Transparency International rated Hungary as conducting little enforcement of bribery, saying that the country still has yet to charge a 'legal person' — a corporate entity — because there are still criminal liability issues.

Still, some trace corruption back to Hungary’s political system. A campaign finance law introduced in 1997, ostensibly to create a level playing field for the parties, capped spending at $1.9 million per party. But, due to the expenses of modern campaign economics, it has led to widespread fraud, falsification of records and bribe-taking, according to reports and experts.

'They simply cannot run campaigns on that amount of money,' said Eva Balogh, a historian who writes the blog Hungarian Spectrum. The two biggest parties, the socialist MSZP and center-right Fidesz, spent an average of three times the maximum amount allowed under the law in the last election campaign in 2010, according to a recent study of the region by Transparency International. But neither was severely punished; Fidesz won because it kept pointing the finger at the other party as corrupt, Balogh said."

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