30-year-old Csanad Szegedi gained attention for himself as a member of the far right Jobbick political party by accusing the “elite” Jews of taking over Hungary’s politics and of “buying up” the country’s real estate. His political ambitions were stopped in their tracks recently when Szegedi acknowledged that his grandparents on his mothers side were Jewish, making Szegedi… a Jew!

Via the AP story:

At the root of the drama is an audio tape of a 2010 meeting between Szegedi and a convicted felon. Szegedi acknowledges that the meeting took place but contends the tape was altered in unspecified ways; Jobbik considers it real.

In the recording, the felon is heard confronting Szegedi with evidence of his Jewish roots. Szegedi sounds surprised, then offers money and favors in exchange for keeping quiet.

Under pressure, Szegedi resigned last month from all party positions and gave up his Jobbik membership. That wasn’t good enough for the party: Last week it asked him to give up his seat in the European Parliament as well. Jobbik says its issue is the suspected bribery, not his Jewish roots.

Szegedi came to prominence in 2007 as a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews. In all, 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, most of them after being sent in trains to death camps like Auschwitz. The Hungarian Guard was banned by the courts in 2009.

Csanad Szegedi’s grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather was held in Nazi labor camps. Szegedi has declared himself “100% Hungarian.”

Another Jobbik party pol made headlines in Hungary when he asked a lab to test his blood to prove that he did not have Romanian or Jewish DNA.