Vendetta start? PM Orbán’s top minister Lázár slams Fidesz-close oligarchs, calls them ticks for living in luxury

Minister of Transport and Construction János Lázár talked about ticks in Fidesz in a Kisvárda forum. He said there were entrepreneurs supported by the Orbán cabinet who forgot to channel back money for public welfare. Instead, they started to live a high life with yachting, spending on luxuries, etc. Lázár said they have to sweep off those ticks to win back the trust of their constituents. Hungarian media talks about former National Bank Governor György Matolcsy and his son, and even Orbán’s friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, the wealthiest Hungarian, among the possible “ticks”.

Ticks in Fidesz

According to a video uploaded on János Lázár’s official Facebook page, he slammed some unnamed government-close oligarchs harshly at an open-air forum in Kisvárda, Northeastern Hungary, yesterday. Lázár talked about ticks who were helped to wealth by the Orbán regime (the System of National Cooperation – NER), but they forgot to channel back money into public welfare. Instead, they started to live a high life, which Lázár is fed up with.

In the name of Fidesz, Lázár urged them to finish that because it brings shame to his political community. Interestingly, after talking in the name of Orbán’s party, he highlighted that that was only his personal opinion about the so-called “ticks”.

The video went viral in mere minutes on the Hungarian internet, garnering almost 10 thousand reactions (including mayors of big cities) and more than 3,000 comments. Interestingly, most of the comments slam Lázár and Fidesz saying that even though he said that on the forum, he was and is a beneficiary of the Fidesz system, gaining, for example, a castle and lots of agricultural lands.

Primary target: the Matolcsy clan

The Hungarian media began lamenting who Lázár could have possibly talked about. Their primary suspect is former National Bank Governor György Matolcsy and his son, Ádám Matolcsy, who, according to the suspicion, contributed to a tremendous fortune loss concerning the National Bank and a rural Hungarian university by investing more than EUR 1.5 billion in two foreign real estate companies with continuously decreasing share values. We covered the story in THIS and THIS articles.

Orbán and Matolcsy were close allies and friends before, but their relationship deteriorated, and Matolcsy even criticised the government for not stopping the inflation in 2022-2023. In return, government members and Fidesz-close influencers slammed Matolcsy in the last months of his term, but they never talked about the central bank’s controversial foundations. A probe concerning how they used the money started after Mihály Varga took over the governorship of the national bank, and Hungarian media believes he needed Orbán’s approval.

Is Lázár talking with Orbán’s mouth?

Many Hungarian journalists and political scientists believe that what Lázár says is actually what Orbán says. Many believe that was the case in 2013 when Lázár, as Orbán’s secretary of state, called Sándor Csányi, the CEO of the OTP Bank, the biggest loan shark of Hungary who won billions of forints on clients taking out foreign currency loans. He also compared him to an octopus whose tentacles reach everywhere in the Hungarian economy. In 2016, they made peace.

Fidesz-helped business circles “not using their wealth well” were not the sole targets of Lázár in Kisvárda. He said that Budapesters get much higher wages than rural Hungarians. Consequently, Budapest should not receive more development funds from the government. He also criticised Budapest-based policies concerning rural Hungary’s development. He stated that Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County’s lag behind Budapest decreased during the Fidesz government, but a participant who voted for Fidesz before disagreed with him. He also said that Fidesz never protected their brethren against prison. That is why several Fidesz secretaries and vice-secretaries are under probe or serve their prison sentence.

The Hungarian media’s belief that what Lázár said in Kisvárda concerning Fidesz-close oligarchs was a message from Orbán seems to falter on the fact that the minister slammed even the prime minister’s close friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, the wealthiest Hungarian. Mészáros was a medium-sized entrepreneur before Orbán won the 2010 general elections. His career got a jump-start after the first Fidesz supermajority and he gained his wealth almost only by winning public procurements.

Read also:

• Péter Magyar: PM Orbán drove drunk, builds luxury estate in Hatvanpuszta with zebras, palm house, armoured cars – read more HERE
• Hungary’s economic freefall: Is PM Viktor Orbán’s empire crumbling?