Bombshell ruling knocks Poland’s PiS for improper election spending

WARSAW — Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) could lose millions in state financing after the country’s top election body on Thursday rejected the party’s annual financial report for 2023.
The National Electoral Commission (PKW) was ruling on spending covering last year’s parliamentary election — following which PiS lost power. The commission questioned 3.6 million złoty (€840,000) as improperly raised and spent, the Onet news portal reported.
The ruling could blow a hole in PiS’s finances just as the party gears up for next year’s crucial presidential election.
PKW Chair Sylwester Marciniak said the party would normally get a grant of 38 million złoty based on how many seats it won last year, but that funding will now be cut by 10 million złoty. PiS will also have its annual budget support cut by a combined 43.2 million złoty until the end of the current four-year parliamentary term.
On top of that, the party could lose all the subsidies that have been earmarked for it in the current term; that, however, will be subject to a separate decision by the PKW.
Marciniak said the party has 14 days to appeal the PKW decision to the Supreme Court.
PiS and its allies reacted with fury.
Former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the decision “shameful.”
“It is part of the political game of the current government, whose goal is revenge and marginalization of the opposition,” Morawiecki said on X.
“The members of the National Electoral Commission who signed this shameful resolution will regret it. It will cost them dearly,” Jan Kanthak, an MP for PiS’s far-right former coalition partner, Sovereign Poland, said on X.
Morawiecki accused the PKW — appointed in March by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda on the recommendation of parties with seats in parliament — of trying to hobble PiS ahead of the presidential vote.
“Of course it’s about next year’s presidential elections. The current government wants to weaken us because it fears defeat,” Morawiecki said.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk fired back, saying: “PiS is learning the true meaning of law and justice.”
Szymon Hołownia, the speaker of parliament and leader of the Poland 2050 party allied with Tusk, said: “PiS was not punished by anyone today, PiS punished itself. It ran the campaign on steroids, and today it was simply billed for those steroids.”
Last year’s election cost PiS its parliamentary majority, with Morawiecki being replaced by Tusk and his coalition government. The new administration has launched a series of probes and investigations claiming that PiS violated financing rules by using public funds to boost its electoral chances. 
The issue has become a major point of contention between the new government and PiS. Tusk has long promised to hold PiS accountable for what he said was their “eight corrupt years” in power.
One of the most striking examples was the accusation that the State Forests — a body that owns most of the country’s forests and which sold 14.6 billion złoty worth of timber in 2023 alone — was used by Sovereign Poland to promote itself ahead of October’s election.
Sovereign Poland is also at the center of an investigation into alleged misuse of money from a fund operated by the Ministry of Justice, which the party controlled.
Since PiS ran a joint campaign account with Sovereign Poland, any misdeeds by the smaller party also affect its larger ally.
PiS’s campaign finances were also problematic.
Deputy Chairman Mariusz Błaszczak, who was defense minister in the former government, showed up at a number of “military picnics” organized during the election campaign that were seen as promoting PiS.
At one of the events, in August last year, PiS Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, speaking from the stage while flanked by Polish troops, called Tusk “the personification of evil in Poland.”
Błaszczak also denounced Thursday’s decision, saying: “Tusk is introducing the Belarusian system, a regime that does not respect the rights of the opposition, [and] which is trying to destroy the opposition in our country.”