Hungary’s government rocked as former insider leaks recordings
Al Jazeera
Peter Magyar says recording proves senior government officials manipulated court documents to cover up corruption involvement.
Protests have erupted in Hungary as a leaked recording stoked a continuing scandal that has rocked the government.
The tape, released by former government insider turned critic Peter Magyar, who claims that it proves top officials are corrupt, brought thousands out onto the streets of Budapest on Tuesday evening. The episode extends the pressure on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s populist government, which critics have long accused of systemic corruption.
The protesters demanded the resignation of Orban, as well as his chief prosecutor. The nationalist leader, who has ruled since 2010, is facing one of the strongest public challenges to his tightening grip on power.
Hungary’s largest protests in years erupted in early February when it was revealed that the president had issued a pardon to a man imprisoned for covering up child sexual abuses by the director of a state-run orphanage. Close Orban allies, including the president and then-justice minister Judit Varga, were forced to resign in the face of public outrage.
Magyar, Varga’s ex-husband and a lawyer who previously enjoyed close ties to Orban’s Fidesz party, has since turned whistleblower and is seeking to launch his own political career.
