Budapest, Mar. 27, (dpa/GNA) – Thousands of people demonstrated in Budapest on Tuesday evening against the government of right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The protest was prompted by allegations of bribery and corruption against members of the government.
Péter Magyar, the ex-husband of Orbán’s former justice minister Judit Varga, had called for the demonstration. He described Orbán as the “head of the mafia state.”
Magyar had earlier published a secretly recorded private conversation with his former wife, which is said to prove that Orbán’s government tried to cover up the involvement of Antal Rogán, a minister and the head of Orbán’s Cabinet office, in a corruption case.
The public prosecutor’s office has been investigating the corruption case since 2021, in which a state secretary in the Ministry of Justice led by Varga at the time is alleged to have accepted large bribes.
Varga was considered a close political ally of Orbán. She was minister of justice until June 2023. She resigned in order to lead her party Fidesz’s list in the upcoming European elections. She resigned from this position at the beginning of this year in the wake of a paedophilia scandal.
Varga accused her ex-husband of having provoked the compromising statements.