Péter Barnabás Farkas resigned from his position as deputy mayor of Ózd after two photos taken of him emerged from 2018, looking suspiciously as if he was doing a Nazi salute at the Holocaust Museum in Poland. He will, however, stay a municipal representative.
When the first picture was published during the opposition primaries in which Farkas was a joint candidate of many opposition parties, the Jobbik politician called the suggestion that he was doing the Nazi salute, “vile slander.” He said he was waving to others.
This excuse was not enough for three opposition parties. As a consequence, LMP, Momentum, and Péter Márki-Zay’s Everyone’s Hungary Movement have all withdrawn their support. However, Jobbik and leftist DK backed him all through the primaries. In the end, Farkas, who had formerly been the favorite to win, lost the race for the candidancy.
After a more suspicious, second photo became public, he apologized in a Facebook post. Farkas also visited the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest and apologized again, saying: “I was confronted with all the horrors that were committed against a people. Crimes committed against the Jewish people must never be repeated.” He visited the museum at the request of the Hungarian Jewish Community (Mazsihisz).
As a result, the municipality was due to hold a vote on Farkas’s mandate, but he resigned from his position as deputy mayor before that could take place.
Farkas was not alone in the compromising situation. There was a photo published of the deputy mayor before him, Péter Fidrus, at the same place. It looked like he was imitating the Hitler mustache (or toothbrush mustache) while doing the Nazi salute as well. According to Telex, the two politicians were supposedly taking photos of each other.
Firdus said that “the photoshoot between the two of them was a gross joke, there could be such a video of anyone,” and he has already apologized to those he has offended. Fidrus claims that the pictures of Farkas were not taken by him- nor were the ones of him. He lost his phone a few weeks ago so he did not rule out the possibility that unauthorized people had access to the pictures from there.
Fidrus is currently Jobbik’s municipal representative in Ózd, as well as the chairman of the public procurement committee, a member of the supervisory board of Távhő, and the mayor’s advisor. Whether he will stay in these positions or not is unknown so far.
Featured image: screen capture from the video about Farkas’s visit to the Holocaust Memorial Center via Péter Barnabás Farkas’s Facebook page
