From the 2026 Budget Audit
4 billion Ft of your taxes will fund the 2026 election campaigns.
A dedicated campaign-cost line in the national budget transfers public money to the parties contesting the election — the same election in which voters are supposed to express their preference between those parties.
4,000 million Ft — roughly 988 Ft per household — funding campaigning activity that supporters of each party would pay for voluntarily if they backed the programme.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: parties with campaign resources not dependent on the voluntary support of their own voters. The unseen: every household paying for the campaigns of parties they may actively oppose — and the signal that voluntary fundraising would have provided about which campaigns actually command public enthusiasm.
Objection
"Public campaign funding creates a level playing field — without it, only well-funded parties can compete."
Answer
A single-cycle election-specific appropriation does not level a playing field — it locks in the allocation from the last election cycle. The parties that win the most state campaign funding are precisely the parties that most recently held the most seats. Transparent contribution limits and disclosure requirements level the field without compelling every household to fund every party.
Share if you think campaigns should be funded by the people who want to win them.
The analyst's verdict
Campaign Costs
Rationale
This line funds the campaign costs of the 2026 general election. It is distinct from the National Election Office's operational budget — the machinery of running the vote — and from the per-candidate and per-list statutory campaign support that flows through the State Treasury. Funding the campaigning activity of political competitors from the general budget is, like the party transfers, a substitution of a tax-financed appropriation for the voluntary support a campaign commands. Campaigning — persuading voters of a programme — is the core activity of a political competitor, and the willingness of supporters to fund it is the signal that the framework treats as the appropriate test. The reliance argument that justifies a transition for the standing party transfers does not apply: this is a single-cycle election-specific appropriation, not a recurring income around which an organisation has built permanent staffing. It can be ended cleanly.
Transition mechanism
Delete the line in the 2026 cycle. Campaigns are financed by their supporters within a transparent contribution-disclosure framework.
Affected groups
Political competitors contesting the election, who fund campaigning from voluntary contributions.
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