Rumors have started to swirl around the private life of Jobbik Chairman Gábor Vona after someone claiming to have hacked his Hungarian social networking site IWIW profile posted images from the account as well as personal communications online. Now Magyar Hírlap, which for a while flirted with the far-right before coming back to support Fidesz, is reporting that Vona may have had an extramarital affair with Mariann Pogácsás (seen here with Vona at presumably some Magyar Gárda event), and possibly with others. Jobbik denied the allegations on their official media site barikad.hu, calling them forgeries and part of a campaign to discredit Vona by the "Socialist-Fidesz grand coalition." What remains to be seen, however, is if this story gets some legs or quickly dies down.

With the three largest parties all planning rallies on March 15th at 3 in the afternoon in downtown Pest, Fidesz was the first party to relocate their rally across the river into Buda, although the MTI report left out Mouth of Fidesz Péter Szijjártó's claim that the party was relocating to be "away from the two extremist parties." Now, index.hu reports, the Socialists have announced they've changed the time of their rally to 12:30, and have announced it will be over by 2, an hour before the Jobbik rally is to start, albeit not providing reasons for their decision, other than a brief statement that they understand why Fidesz would want to relocate. Jobbik in turn responded that Fidesz was being as cowardly as they were on October 23, 2006 (a day on which Jobbik did not hold their own commemoration/rally) and that the Socialists changed their plans to better suit their future grand coalition partners Fidesz. Clearly, while both Fidesz and Jobbik took the opportunity to throw some mud at the others, it just doesn't look like the Socialists even put in an effort on this one.

Journalist and current Democratic Forum parliamentary candidate József Debreczeni took time away from praising Ferenc Gyurcsány and demonizing Viktor Orbán to throw some questions at Jobbik over the weekend, nol.hu reports. Specifically, he wanted to know what Jobbiks' relationship is with György Budaházy, what are the details of the far-right alliance signed in Szeged, and what's the relationship between the Betyársereg ("Rascal Army"), the Hungarian Guard, the 64 Counties Youth Movement and Jobbik? He also sought clarification about what the relationship is between the Hungarian Arros Liberation Party and Jobbik.

It's still far too early in the 2010 general election season to say which party is winning the contest for the most bizarre campaign poster. But my current favorite has got to be the above offering from the MDF, a giant version of which is now greeting me every morning on my local metro platform. While the folks over at the addict blog have already had a bit of fun with the jarring image and similar ones featuring hip young boys, comparing them to Benetton ads (calling them the "United Colors of MDF"), this particular poster actually reminded me of something different: The 2004 Hollywood teen comedy "Mean Girls." (My own mash-up is below.)

If you didn't see the film, it's about an earnest and intelligent high school girl's battle with a clique of phony and domineering über-bitches called the "plastics," which is probably how MDF actually sees itself vis-à-vis their current competition. On the other hand, the MDF is the only party out there that has made saying "no" to most voters' desire for government largess the centerpiece of its platform, so maybe they want to be perceived as mean but hot. Either way, weird.

The million forint question that's been going around Hungarian political circles since this past weekend is "what was János Veres doing in East Asia with a female colleague"? The question was first raised after a reader of tabloid Blikk snapped the former finance minister along with former MEP Alexandra Dobolyi (above right, who is his direct subordinate in the Office of the Prime Minister where Veres currently works) on a street in Macau. The tabloid was unable to find a listing of an official visit to the region, but noticed that the pair had made three other visits to foreign destinations since last July.

Early Tuesday morning, valasztas.hu, the website of the National Elections Office was attacked, with the names of the three major parties changed, index.hu reports. The "hacker" (according to the portal it was a case of a poorly written webpage and not a proper server hack) renamed the Socialist Party on the website to "Maszop Mafiosos", Fidesz to "Zsidesz - Hungarian Political Criminals Union", and added in front of Jobbik "the only clean party." Index.hu is hosting a screengrab of the changes, which a programmer for far-right portal kuruc.info has claimed responsibility for. Now just imagine what they could have done if they'd actually been funny…

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has expressed his opinion that a Fidesz electoral victory in April would lead to strained relations between Hungary and Slovakia, mno.hu reports, unlike the status quo which is just peachy. Fico stated that if Fidesz were to act upon what they've said in opposition, it would mean a turn for the worse. This coming from the man who with coalition partners the Slovak National Party has made vilifying Slovakia's Hungarian minority official policy for all intents and purposes.

This campaign poster by the Democratic Forum lists three qualities that the party has: being Hungarian, being Democratic, and being independent. Considering how many of the party's former members are now running as independents in the upcoming elections after ditching the party, we couldn't agree more.

Pending a final vote on the manner, the Socialist Party has assembled its list for the municipal elections to be held this fall, Magyar Nemzet reports, with Csaba Horváth to be the party's Budapest mayoral candidate. Horváth has been vice-mayor of Budapest since 2006 alongside Miklós Hagyó, who was originally tipped to be the Socialist candidate until he was connected to nearly every BKV scandal that emerged since last summer. Horváth will likely run against nominally independent and Fidesz-supported István Tarlós, and against any other possible third party candidates, since five-term mayor Gábor Demszky has ruled out running again, thankfully.

The Egyenlitő blog published a post yesterday that Fidesz firebrand László Kövér was caught on tape saying that Békés County should be turned into a reservoir, that votes should be bought, religion should be part of the census, the police are corrupt and that the role of prosecutors should be legally changed so that they answer to the government.

Naturally, this has upset some people, not least of whom are Fidesz themselves, who according to Magyar Nemzet have promised legal action and fired back that the audio was heavily edited and manipulated, claiming that the "reservation plan" was an observation about the Socialists' last eight years in power and that the vote-buying scheme was a joke plan put forward by a Slovakian liberal party that appeared in the Hungarian press some time ago, not to mention the other alleged statements. Kövér is, of course, known for making controversial statements, so it remains to be seen what will become of this, as the Egyenlitő blog doesn't appear to be backing down.

According to index.hu, Fidesz plans to launch an investigation into former Budapest police chief Péter Gergényi and national police chief László Bene over police brutality during the riots in the fall of 2006. What makes this extra interesting is that Fidesz expects this investigation to be conducted by former and likely future interior minister Sándor Pintér, who has been on friendly terms with Gergényi in the past, even launching an unsuccessful travel agency in the process.

Because nothing brings Hungarians together like being against something, Viktor Orbán's Facebook presence has spawned a group asking the simple question "Can a nice apple have more fans than Viktor Orbán?" So far, Orbán fans outnumber apple fans by a 2:1 margin, but we couldn't help but notice the choice to go with a red apple, as opposed to a McIntosh which incorporates both red and green, or the obvious choice, a Hungarian orange.

Reading the news post about how Viktor Orbán has asked his party members to keep their mouths shut and avoid making their opinions public, I couldn't help but think of former Fidesz vice-prime ministerial candidate István Mikola's infamous gaffe during the 2006 campaign, when he said Hungary's youth were a bunch of "single techno listeners with pierced ears, and that there ought to be limits to freedom" (roughly paraphrased). While it didn't sink Fidesz's electoral chances by itself, it was certainly more than an own goal and allowed Fidesz to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It would seem Orbán's being extra-sensitive about what his fellow party members might say this time around, especially as it can make the difference between a simple and a super majority.

How's this for a campaign ad (from subway handout Metropol) that is desperate, condescending and creepy all at the same time? For the Hungarian-challenged, it basically says that pensioners have no choice but to vote for the Socialists, because they're the ones who will protect (and fatten) their checks by keeping the foundation of the system stable. Bonus ridiculousness: It was the MSZP that introduced and then canceled the beloved/insane "13th month" bonus pension. Special extra bonus ridiculousness: The graphic featuring old biddies in hats and scarves on what looks to be a button on a computer or something. Lights out.

The Mandiner blog noticed the curious cropping used for the image of Viktor Orbán at the top of Socialist-friendly Népszabadság's website, seen here above. What remains uncertain about the cropping is if it was done to make Orbán look short, or if the intended effect was to cut most of the green out of the tricolors behind him to make it more closely resemble the Árpád-striped flags, and therefore make him appear more rightward than he is.

A committee that succeeded in making a district of Mosonmagyaróvár into a separate settlement has placed a classified ad in a newspaper looking for a mayor, Népszabadság reported after picking up the story from local daily Kisalföld. Hungary's newest settlement, to be named Mosonudvar, has a population of just 500. The ad requires that prospective mayors have experience in public administration and hold a higher education degree. Here's a list of people who might be up for the job, although what we'd like to know is how long before other towns start looking for local politicians via Craigslist?

With Fidesz's wide lead in the polls and the collapse of support for the smaller parties, all but the bigwigs in the Socialist Party are likely to lose their cushy seats in parliament this April. Consequently, Blikk asked a few of these pols what they'd be up to after the elections. Mária Vojnik (MSZP), a doctor, said she'd go back to working in a hospital, Gábor Horn (SZDSZ) said he would start a university (which I presume would feature all of the Free Dems' plans to overhaul higher education). Kálmán Katona (ex-MDF) said he would return to environmental protection, Károly Tóth (MSZP) said he might return to teaching, and András Pettkó (ex-MDF, pictured) will return to landscape architecture. And if you didn't see any of your favorite MPs, don't worry. Given the nepotistic nature of Hungary's business and political elite, they won't be going to the poorhouse anytime soon.

Politics Can Be Different (Lehet Más a Politika) is more confident than even we imagined, according to a report by mno.hu. According to the Fidesz-friendly newspaper, Gábor Ivády of the party's national campaign organization said that if the party can assemble a national list for all constituencies, they would reach 8% in the April elections, after which they would go into opposition and refuse to form a coalition with any of the other parties. How about forming that national list first?