Summer holiday at Lake Balaton? Charming autumn city break in Budapest? Be aware that the corrupt clientele of the Orbán regime is branching out to tourism. They own hotels and restaurants around the most popular destinations. Don’t feed kleptocrats and don’t support oligarchs usurping both Hungarian and EU taxpayers’ money. Hungarian anti-corruption NGO K-Monitor is now fundraising for a tool, that facilitates conscious consumer choices. Update: Hotel Oligarch goes live on a new website: Check it out!
In the past eight years, Viktor Orbán’s System of National Cooperation (NER) was characterized by extreme clientelism and the erosion of citizens’ rights to exert control over the government. By the summer of 2018, previously market-based economic sectors (such as the bank or service sector, or the media) have been taken over by newly arisen, government-friendly tycoons, who built their empire with the help of pre-arranged procurements and numerous state interventions. This process is well illustrated by the way the Prime Minister’s immediate circle, headed by Orbán’s homeboy, Lőrinc Mészáros and István Tiborcz, Orbán’s son in law, have expanded their interests in the region of Lake Balaton.