It has set off a firestorm. Having already triggered the surprise resignation, on Saturday, February 10, of Hungarian President Katalin Novak (a close associate of Prime Minister Viktor Orban), the scandal surrounding the pardon granted in April 2023 to a man convicted in a child sexual abuse case has continued to reverberate throughout Hungary. The fallout has been shaking the foundations of the nationalist prime minister's 14-year hold on power like never before, given his fondness for extolling "traditional" family values.

It all started with Novak's controversial decision, in April 2023, to grant a presidential pardon to the deputy director of a children's home who was sentenced in 2022 to more than three years in prison for covering up acts of child sexual abuse committed by his superior. The pardon, which until recently had remained a secret, was revealed by the website 444.hu in early February. It is thought to have been granted at the request of the head of the Calvinist Church in this Central European country, by a pastor who was once a minister under Orban.

This revelation has so shocked Hungarians that the president, who was elected in 2022 on the strength of her conservative family values, has been forced to step down from her largely ceremonial position, after laboriously trying to justify herself for several days. Her resignation was immediately followed by the withdrawal from politics of former justice minister Judit Varga, who had also signed the pardon. As Orban's main player on the European stage, Varga had been considered to lead his party, Fidesz, in the European elections in June.

But even more than the departure of the two lone female political figures in Hungary's male-dominated power structure, it's the confessions of Varga's ex-husband that have kept 10 million Hungarians on the edge of their seats. Since February 11, this man, who until now has spent his entire career at the head of institutions close to the government, has doubled down on his settling of scores, on Facebook and in an interview for a highly popular Hungarian opposition web TV channel that had already been viewed more than 800,000 times by Tuesday evening.

"I do not want to be part of a system for a minute longer where the real culprits hide behind women's skirts," said Peter Magyar, coming to the defense of his ex-wife. A lengthy confession followed, confirming point by point all the instances of rampant kleptocracy and nepotism observed in Hungary in recent years. In particular, Magyar detailed the unfair invitations to tender he'd had to issue in favor of those close to Orban, the pressure brought to bear against him during his divorce and the tight control over all information in the state media by the prime minister's powerful chief of staff.

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