Hungary’s government accused of spying on opposition

According to investigative platform Direkt36, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s administration allegedly utilized the country’s intelligence services to monitor the opposition Tisza Party. The revelation has sparked significant concern as the nation prepares for its crucial parliamentary election. The political campaign has been intensively active for weeks, yet this latest development has left even the most composed analysts unsettled.

Reports suggest that the Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmanyvedelmi Hivatal), one of Hungary’s five intelligence agencies, attempted to infiltrate the Tisza Party in July 2025. The goal was reportedly to hinder the party’s electoral prospects or at least reduce its chances of success. Intelligence sources claim the agency targeted IT technicians overseeing the party’s digital infrastructure to gain access to internal communications and potentially manipulate election outcomes.

The operation began in July 2025, a period when the Tisza Party was seen as a significant challenge to Orban’s leadership. Current polls indicate the party is leading Fidesz, Orban’s ruling coalition, in the race for April 12. Despite this, there is no direct evidence that Orban personally authorized the spying. However, the Constitution Protection Office operates under the prime minister’s office, and the government has not refuted the claims.

Instead, the administration has framed the intelligence activities as a countermeasure against a suspected Ukrainian espionage effort. The story was first revealed by Direkt36 on March 24, with a follow-up video published the next day. The video features Bence Szabo, a former police captain from the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI), who details the operation. Szabo, a senior cybercrime investigator specializing in online child pornography, resigned shortly before the video’s release and was later dismissed.

“I swore an oath,” he says in the video. “I want to serve my country, not a specific group of people, like a party.”

Szabo explains that the Constitution Protection Office, which lacks independent investigative authority, pressured his department to probe a child pornography case. The two suspects, however, were actually responsible for maintaining the Tisza Party’s IT systems. The agency had previously tried to recruit them but failed, prompting fears they might expose the operation. After their hardware was seized, the intelligence services reportedly copied data without authorization.

Earlier this year, the Tisza Party’s app faced scrutiny when 200,000 supporters’ personal data was leaked. Orban’s government and Fidesz initially blamed Ukraine, as the app had been developed by Ukrainian IT experts. Szabo’s testimony now suggests the breach may have been orchestrated by Orban’s power structure. The video, which has garnered 2.5 million views, highlights a severe misuse of authority. Andras Petho, co-founder of Direkt36, emphasized the report raises “serious questions about the independent, pol