Poland’s Opposition Party Faces Funding Loss
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s largest opposition party, the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS), is set to lose millions in state funding after the electoral commission announced on Thursday that it misused public money during its campaign.
The funding loss for PiS, which led in the 2023 general elections but lost its majority, may bolster Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-European Civic Coalition (KO) as it seeks to cement its position in Polish politics.
With a presidential election approaching in 2025, PiS criticized the electoral commission’s decision as an attempt to undermine its electoral prospects. State funding for a party is calculated based on its electoral success and is disbursed retroactively.
Electoral Commission head Sylwester Marciniak indicated that misusing public funds in elections would serve as a warning to future parties about their campaigning practices.
The commission determined that PiS had illegally expended 3.6 million zlotys ($930,738) during the 2023 campaign. Instances of misuse included election activities disguised as military recruitment events and advertisements sponsored by the justice ministry.
As a penalty, PiS will forfeit about 10 million zlotys ($2.59 million) linked to its 2023 elections and will face a yearly deduction of roughly 10 million zlotys until the end of the current parliamentary term in 2027. The commission also cautioned that PiS might entirely lose its annual funding.
PiS officials previously asserted that any funding cuts would threaten democracy, reacting vehemently to the commission’s ruling. Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned the decision, accusing the current government of engaging in a political vendetta.
Prosecutors have alleged that lawmakers from PiS’s ally, Sovereign Poland, misappropriated funds meant for crime victims to gain favor with rural voters. Former Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski was arrested in July for fund misuse but later released due to immunity claims.
The ruling government stated that expenditures on enhancing child benefits or events to recruit for the armed forces constituted political campaigning misuse, with claims of funds being diverted from state companies.
Tusk remarked on social media that PiS has learned the “true meaning of law and justice” following this ruling.
($1 = 3.8673 zlotys)
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