The Hungarian election campaign has been in a frenzy for weeks, but this scandal has shocked many observers, who have likened it to a “return to dictatorship and Communist times.”
Last week it emerged that the Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal), one of Hungary’s five intelligence services, is believed to have tried to infiltrate the opposition Tisza Party to obstruct its participation in the election or at least reduce its chances. The service allegedly sought to recruit technicians who maintained the party’s IT systems to access internal information and use it to influence the vote.
The operation is said to have begun in July 2025. By then it was already clear that the Tisza Party posed a real threat to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: polls show Tisza well ahead of Orbán’s Fidesz and predicted to win the parliamentary election on April 12, 2026.
There is no evidence that Orbán personally ordered the operation, but the Constitution Protection Office reports directly to the prime minister’s office. The government has not denied the revelations; instead it has characterized the intelligence services’ actions as a response to an alleged Ukrainian espionage attempt, without specifying details.
Investigative portal Direkt36 broke the story on March 24 and the next day published a 90-minute interview with Bence Szabó, a former police captain from the National Bureau of Investigation’s cybercrime unit, who provided detailed testimony. Szabó, who resigned shortly before the video and has since been dismissed, said the Constitution Protection Office — which has no authority to conduct its own criminal investigations — pressured his unit to pursue an alleged child‑pornography case and seize computer hardware from two suspects. Those suspects, he says, were actually responsible for maintaining the Tisza Party’s IT systems.
According to Szabó, the intelligence service had earlier tried and failed to recruit the two men and feared they might expose its actions. After the hardware seizure, data were copied from the devices without authorization. Last autumn about 200,000 Tisza supporters’ personal data were leaked from the party app and made public; the government and Fidesz blamed Ukraine because Ukrainian IT experts developed the app. Szabó’s testimony suggests the breach may instead have been orchestrated by Orbán’s apparatus.
In the video Szabó describes a months‑long operation and says he warned superiors it was politically motivated, but was ignored. He says he defied an order to “find” incriminating material on the suspects and eventually went to the media because no one in the state would listen. The video has been viewed by millions.
The report has raised serious questions about the political neutrality of Hungarian agencies, said Direkt36 co‑founder András Petho. Political scientist Miklós Sukosd compares the situation to the end of the communist era, arguing Fidesz is unwilling to hand over power and is not following democratic rules.
Government politicians have framed the case as anti‑espionage against Ukraine; one accused person has been labeled, without evidence, a Ukrainian spy. The government published video of the 19‑year‑old’s interrogation by the Constitution Protection Office. Szabó has been charged with misconduct in public office. Investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, who reported on secret ties between Russia and the Hungarian government, has also been accused of espionage, a charge he calls absurd.
The case has galvanised the opposition and parts of the public. Tisza leader Péter Magyar threatened the government over any action against Szabó. Szabó himself says he does not see himself as a hero; he says he acted out of oath and duty. Orbán has not addressed the case directly; he has accused Kyiv of plotting and, at a campaign event, warned cryptically: “I still have a few bullets left in the magazine that I can use.”
This article was originally published in German.