"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."
Lord Kelvin

The share of contracts won by Orbán’s allies among contracts with a single bid

Announcements

 

April 12, 2026, 17:45

On April 1, 2026, The Economist cited the CRCB’s research findings in a sentence from its article (https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/04/01/might-hungarys-election-sweep-away-magas-favourite-foreign-leader):

“Last year, 75% of single-bid government contracts went to companies associated with Mr. Orban’s allies, up from 39% in 2022, according to the Corruption Research Centre of Budapest (…).”

Unfortunately, this statement is incorrect. We did not provide such information to The Economist; this is likely due to a misunderstanding.

Based on the CRCB’s research findings, we sent the following information to The Economist via email on March 27, 2026:

“(…) the extent of political favoritism (the theft) has increased significantly: the share of single bid contracts won by Orbán’s affiliates has risen significantly from 39% (2022) or 44% (2023) to 65% (2024) and 71%  (2025). The latter is the highest value in the period 2011-2025.”

We later published these findings in our most recent report as well (see point 3.3. and Fig. 12). If we put the correct data into the original sentence, it will read as follows:

“Last year, 6.6% of single-bid government contracts went to companies associated with Mr. Orban’s allies, up from 3.2% in 2022, according to the Corruption Research Centre of Budapest (…).”