SerpApi.Org
Hungarian prosecutors on Tuesday raided the data servers of nationalist ex-leader Viktor Orban's Fidesz party as part of an investigation into alleged corruption.
Since ending Orban's hardline 16-year rule, Prime Minister Peter Magyar's new pro-European conservative government has rushed to loosen the self-styled "illiberal" leader's lingering grip on the country.
Magyar has also vowed to pursue figures who enabled corruption, which watchdogs believe became endemic under his predecessor, and recover public assets from those who "illegally acquired" them.
"Investigators from the prosecutor's office showed up unannounced at the data centre hosting Fidesz's servers with the intention of seizing the party's entire communications system and databases," a statement from Orban's party said on Facebook.
Prosecutors in Bacs-Kiskun County in southern Hungary were "conducting an investigation in a criminal case initiated in connection with the National Cultural Fund regarding the crime of embezzlement and other criminal offences", their spokeswoman Marianna Bodo told AFP.
Bodo added that no further information would be provided, "as this would compromise the interests of the ongoing investigation".
Blikk, a tabloid close to the party, said prosecutors were conducting an investigation at the German-majority owned Hungarian Telekom's data centre in Budapest.
According to the newspaper, the entire internal communications database of Fidesz, including its email infrastructure, was examined in the presence of the party's lawyers.
Reacting to the operations, Fidesz claimed that "there has been no precedent for this in Hungary since 1990, the end of communism".
Magyar said on Facebook that he had learnt of the alleged raid from the former governing party.
- 'Regime change' -
Magyar's Tisza party swept the April elections on the promise of "regime change", winning a two-thirds majority in parliament.
After his victory, actor-rapper-activist Aron Molnar publicly alleged that the National Cultural Fund functioned as a state-run payment agency for members of Fidesz's inner circle.
After launching an investigation, the tax authority found that the fund's decision-making body had issued 1079 grants totalling more than 17 billion forints ($54 million) in violation of the rules, according to a previous prosecutor's statement.
In June, six people were accused of embezzlement and taken into custody, including Fidesz politician Balazs Bus, who served as the culture fund's vice-president.
Magyar's government has moved to turn the page on the Orban era, passing a swathe of anti-corruption measures and changing the constitution to effectively bar Orban from running again.
The pro-EU premier has also pushed to remove a host of Orban-allied figures he accuses of being "puppets", including unpopular ex-president Tamas Sulyok, ousted by constitutional amendment on Sunday.
Fidesz has decried Magyar's moves as "autocratic", a charge that was often levelled against Orban himself during his tenure.
But the government's reform drive has helped to smooth over ties with the European Union, frayed by Orban's closeness to the Kremlin.
Magyar's anti-graft measures are also seen as crucial to rapidly unblock 16 billion euros ($18.3 billion) in EU funds frozen over rule-of-law concerns under his predecessor.
The governing majority has also approved a dramatic overhaul of public media, which under Orban had become a de facto Fidesz mouthpiece.
bur-sbk-ros/rlp
