WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s largest opposition party, the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS), is set to lose millions in state funding after the country’s electoral commission rejected its 2023 financial report on Monday.
The move, which could leave the party short of campaign cash ahead of next year’s presidential election, fuelled angry claims from the opposition that it was being stifled by the government.
In August, the same commission ruled the party illegally spent 3.6 million zlotys ($881,143) on its 2023 electoral campaign, listing electioneering at military recruitment events and an advert from the justice ministry as examples of misuse of funds.
In power from 2015, PiS came first in a bitterly polarised 2023 general election but lost its majority, resulting in a coalition of pro-European parties forming a government late last year.
“This case shows that the current government’s plan is to eliminate the only real opposition in Poland through illegal, administrative actions,” PiS spokesman Rafal Bochenek said in a statement.
“In the situation that has been created, it is difficult to talk about fair presidential elections in Poland.”
As a result of Monday’s decision, PiS could lose around 75 million zlotys in public funds over the remaining three years of the parliament’s term.
The decision is not final and PiS has 7 days to appeal it. It has already appealed the August decision to the Supreme Court, but the current government does not recognise the court’s authority since it views many of the judges to have been illegally appointed by the previous government.
Government politicians had little sympathy for PiS’ plight.
“They broke the law, milked public institutions, spread party propaganda with taxpayers’ money,” Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a Member of the European Parliament from the largest party in government, Civic Coalition, wrote on X.
($1 = 4.0856 zlotys)
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Barbara Erling; Editing by Christina Fincher)
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