Hungary's reckoning with Orban's corrupt system picks up speed

One of the new Hungarian government's key pledges was to investigate corruption under Viktor Orban , recover embezzled assets, and hold those responsible accountable . Or, in the words of Prime Minister Peter Magyar, it is time to "liquidate Orban's mafia state." During his election campaign, Magyar had already announced a "program for the road to prison." As prime minister, he launched "Operation Purgatory" at the end of June 2026.

Measured against his fighting talk, little has happened so far. There have been no sweeping purges of the state apparatus, although some government funds flowing to Orban-aligned businessmen have been cut off. Police and prosecutors have summoned a handful of relatively unknown individuals for questioning, and a few people were arrested. The governing majority also established an agency to recover assets, but it is is not yet up and running.

But at the beginning of the week, Hungarians witnessed the first significant development in the promised reckoning with the Orban system. Two prominent lawmakers and former ministers were arrested over corruption allegations.

On Monday, Magyar's Tisza Party parliamentary faction used its two-thirds majority to lift the immunity of two lawmakers from the opposition Orban camp: Balazs Hanko, formerly minister for culture and innovation and a lawmaker from Orban's Fidesz party, and Miklos Sesztak, a former development minister who is now a lawmaker for the small Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), which has been a Fidesz affiliate since 2010. Both are the subject of corruption investigations.

Balazs Hanko was not among those in Orban's system who enriched themselves on a large scale. But he is seen as a symbol of the common practice under Orban of systematically using public money to fund the ruling party, Orban's network of allies, election campaigns, and propaganda efforts. Specifically, as minister, Hanko allegedly unlawfully allocated around 50 million euros from the National Cultural Fund (NKA), which he oversaw, in 2025 and 2026, including funds intended for election campaign purposes.

The case of Miklos Sesztak is different. He is one of the wealthiest lawmakers in Hungary and has made headlines for more than a decade with his personal corruption scandals — another typical trait of the Orban system. As minister, Sesztak allegedly accepted around €30 million ($34 million) in bribes with an accomplice between 2015 and 2018. The alleged payments involved contracts related to the state-owned Hungarian bus company Volanbusz and the construction sector.

Sesztak went straight to the prosecutor's office on Monday after his immunity was lifted, where he was taken into pretrial detention. Balazs Hanko took a different route. He arrived at Parliament on Monday morning with his wife and four teenage children and, after his immunity was lifted, said he was waiting for the authorities to make a decision. In practice, it appeared that he was barricading himself inside. Only after Parliament Speaker Agnes Forsthoffer formally ordered Hanko in writing that evening to leave the building, and he received a summons from the prosecutor's office, did he finally head for the exit, accompanied by his family and Fidesz lawmakers protesting what they called Magyar's "arbitrary rule."

The entire episode was livestreamed on Viktor Orban's Facebook page. After Hanko said goodbye to his family outside, a misunderstanding occurred. His SUV driver, apparently believing Hanko was already inside the vehicle, drove off without him. Hanko ran after the SUV, and the livestream on Orban's Facebook page then cut out. Later that evening, Hungarian media reported that Hanko had also been placed in pretrial detention.