Peter Magyar, leader of the opposition party “Tisa“ and a member of the European Parliament, has found himself at the center of a scandal over a leaked photo that was published in Hungary ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for April 12. He admitted to attending a party in a private apartment where drugs were allegedly used.
The politician and candidate for prime minister said he was there in the company of several people, but did not touch drugs. Magyar was forced to post this on Facebook to prevent the publication of a hidden camera video of him in a room where he was alone with his girlfriend Evelyn Vogel, with whom he was on a date at the time.
She, for her part, told the media that she had not installed a camera in the room, knew nothing about the planned provocation and “was the woman who suffered the most“.
The Hungarian government declined to comment on the incident, but Mate Kocsis, leader of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union party, questioned whether such a person could be trusted to govern the country. “If this happened to him in Budapest, what would happen to him in Berlin, Strasbourg or Kiev? If he couldn't make a sober decision not to participate in a cocaine party, how can he make a sober decision not to participate in a war?“, Kocsis wrote on Facebook.
Mysterious website and anonymous letters
The publication of the scandalous video was announced on the website radnaimark.hu, named after Mark Radnai, deputy chairman of the “Tisza“ party. Radnai claims that he was not present at the party and that the previously unknown website was once registered by a complete stranger. The website published a black and white photo of a room with a small tray containing white powder on a table next to the bed. The photo is accompanied by the caption “Once upon a time“ and the date: August 3, 2024.
Shortly before that, Magyar became an MEP and leader of the “Tisza“ party. He is divorced and claims that he did nothing wrong that night and that the situation was orchestrated by the intelligence services to compromise him.
Many Hungarian media outlets had previously received anonymous letters stating that a video featuring Madzár and containing controversial content would soon appear on the website radnaimark.hu after the photo. Political scientist Zoltan Ransburg, in an interview with the newspaper “Népőszáva“, suggested that the scandalous video would never be published, as such actions constitute a violation of privacy and are prohibited by law.