Former Fidesz oligarch caught spray-painting obscene graffiti

Former Fidesz oligarch caught spray-painting obscene graffiti
Online news outlet Helyi Valasz broke the story on its Facebook page.
By bne IntelliNews October 3, 2017

Lajos Simicska, a Hungarian oligarch locked in a public feud with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, made headline news on October 3 after he was caught vandalising his own newsstands in his hometown. "Orban is a f***er", he reportedly spray-painted in big bold letters on his blank newsstands before police caught him, but he was let go.

Simicska painted the same infamous words on his kiosks back in February 2015, when he broke from Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a former close friend as well as a political associate.

The pictures of Simicska, sporting a stained jacket and holding a cigarette in his right hand, on the streets of Veszprem, were taken by Helyi Valasz, an online news outlet he reportedly owns. 

On Facebook the outlet wrote: “Lajos Simicska went to work last night. He was quickly stopped by police”, alongside photos of the oligarch.

Simicska served as treasurer for the ruling Fidesz party, being the mastermind behind the finances of the party from the start and was one of Orban’s closest allies until he broke with the government in a salty outburst in 2015. 

His media empire gradually turned critical against the government and in the last year or so he has reportedly been actively using his billboard companies and media to help the nationalist Jobbik party. The radical party has recently toned down its far-right and anti-EU rhetoric and has worked together on some issues with the leftist opposition parties in parliament.

In the spring Jobbik launched a scathing billboard campaign against Fidesz on billboards owned by Simicska, after which governing parties passed regulation banning political ads outside pre-election campaign periods. 

In the follow-up to this, some 1,100 advertising spaces owned by the businessman were reportedly “sold” to Jobbik, but they soon will be taken away. The county government offices announced that Jobbik failed to release the list price of the posters, as stipulated by law, and therefore it will remove the posters.

 

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