Hungary Lifts the Immunity of Its Prime Minister and Two Ministers
Parliament voted 139 to nil to strip Prime Minister Péter Magyar of immunity, along with two ministers who served under Viktor Orbán. Magyar asked for his own to be lifted, over an allegation he threw a man’s phone into the Danube in June 2024, saying he wanted to clear himself of character assassination. Orbán’s Fidesz and its partner boycotted the vote.
The two ministers are the substance. Balázs Hankó, formerly culture, is accused of embezzling more than €40m, money alleged to have financed the 2026 election campaign. Miklós Sesztak, formerly national development, is accused of taking more than $37m in bribes over vehicle procurement for the state bus company. Both deny wrongdoing. These are the first corruption investigations against senior figures from Orbán’s sixteen years in office, which is why a unanimous vote with the governing party’s successors absent is more significant than the arithmetic suggests. The Prime Minister volunteering his own immunity alongside them is a deliberate piece of framing, inviting the comparison between a thrown telephone and the sums alleged against his predecessors. Watch whether charges actually follow.