Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban expects members of the ruling Fidesz party’s inner circle, who are attracted to the same sex, to discreetly reveal their sexual orientation to avoid potential scandals before the 2026 election, Radio Free Europe reported.

According to reports, Orban conveyed this message during an informal gathering of Fidesz politicians and intellectuals earlier this month at the Kotcse picnic, where the prime minister typically outlines his agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session.

The news comes in the wake of a sex scandal involving a prominent clergyman with close ties to the ruling Fidesz party. Gero Bese, often referred to as Fidesz’s "Catholic star priest," became embroiled in controversy after it was revealed that he had been attending secret gay parties, with explicit videos later appearing on pornographic websites.

The priest was active on social media, where he fiercely attacked the LGBTQ+ community and disseminated political messages. Reports also indicate that the 41-year-old priest received funds directly from Fidesz’s junior coalition partner, the Christian Democratic KDNP party.

Following the scandal, Bese apologised, withdrew from public life and deleted his social media accounts.

While Orban's government frequently criticises the "cancel culture" prevalent in Western liberal democracies, his social media team quickly deleted photos of the priest. In one notable image, Bese was shown sanctifying the Carmelite Monastery, the seat of the prime minister. Similar deletions were made at other pro-Orban media outlets.

The Bese case is the third major sex scandal to hit the ruling party in five years, which prides itself on championing Christian-conservative family values.

In late 2020, Jozsef Szajer, a former Fidesz MEP and author of Hungary’s Constitution, was caught attending a gay orgy in Brussels during the lockdown.

A year earlier, just before the October 2019 local elections, videos surfaced showing Zsolt Borkai, a former Olympic champion and then-mayor of Gyor , engaging with prostitutes on a luxury yacht in the Adriatic Sea. Borkai had been re-elected a few weeks earlier, but was later forced to resign.

The latest scandal exposes the hypocrisy within the party, particularly the contrast between the private actions of some members and the government’s public policies, especially after Hungary passed its controversial anti-LGBTQ laws.

Support for Fidesz has steeply declined since the clemency gate scandal in February, which shook Hungarian politics and led to the rise of former Fidesz figure Péter Magyar. With polls suggesting that the 2026 election could be a close race between Fidesz and the new Tisza Party – some polls show them neck-and-neck – Fidesz is keen to avoid further sex scandals that could alienate its conservative base and jeopardise its chances of victory.

Government spokesperson Bertalan Havasi dismissed the report as "fake news" and "nonsense" in a statement sent to broadcaster Atv.hu.