The Polish opposition conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) has raised around three million zloty (€700,000) from 40,000 donors since it appealed to its voters last week to transfer “even small amounts” of money to the party.
The appeal came after the electoral commission announced cuts to the party’s subsidies after ruling it misused public funds to finance its campaign in the build-up to the parliamentary election last October.
Despite coming first in the election last year, sovereigntist-conservative PiS was ousted from government after eight years, as a coalition of leftist and liberal parties came to power, led by Europhile former prime minister Donald Tusk.
Claiming to fulfill a promise he made to voters before the elections, Tusk is said he would hold to account anyone who “broke the law” as part of the PiS government. The Tusk cabinet has arrested PiS lawmakers, ordered dawn raids against former ministers, removed PiS-nominated officials from courts and public offices, and even arrested a priest on corruption charges.
The prime minister even boasted last month of the effectiveness of the purge, announcing that charges have been brought against more than 60 officials from the former PiS government, alleging offences related to misuse of public funds.
The move to deprive Law and Justice of state funds is in line with these actions.
Under Polish law, political parties that win at least 3% of the vote in parliamentary elections—or coalitions that achieve at least 6%—receive state subsidies to help fund their activities. Before those subsidies are confirmed, the electoral commission must approve each party’s campaign spending report.
However, the commission rejected PiS’s financial report, accusing the party of using public money for political campaigning. Among the accusations aimed at PiS were that the party held events funded by state institutions “where election campaigning unquestionably took place,” and that one of the government offices hired employees who “only served to campaign for the then head” of the institution.
The party could in total lose around 57 million zloty (€13 million) from state subsidies over the next three years.
Donald Tusk wrote cynically on social media platform X that “PiS is learning the true meaning of the words law and justice.” Former PiS-era prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the electoral commission’s decision “shameful,” adding that the current government wants to weaken the opposition because it “fears defeat” at next year’s presidential election.
Donald Tusk has been able to get away with a series of blatant legal transgressions, with the European liberal elites and European Union institutions looking the other way, and even rewarding Tusk’s government, unlocking billions of euros of EU funds they had frozen at the time of the PiS cabinet.
PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński said the electoral commission’s decision was “scandalous,” and was intended to “eliminate the only strong opposition party” in the style of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He added that if the current government wins next year’s presidential election, it will be able to introduce “a regular autocracy, dictatorship or authoritarianism.”
According to the latest polls, PiS and Tusk’s liberal alliance, Civic Coalition (KO) are neck and neck, at around 33 to 34% each. The 40,000 individual donations Law and Justice has received within a matter of days are evidence that the popularity of the party remains high.
PiS plans to organise a protest in front of the Justice Ministry on September 14th. Jarosław Kaczyński described it as a “protest against the violation of the law,” and “against the attack on Polish patriotism.” The demonstration is a response to a raid by the police on the homes and offices of the organisers of the patriotic Independence March, a march held every year on November 11th, Poland’s Independence Day.
According to authorities, the raid was connected to financial irregularities involving large sums of money allegedly distributed by PiS. The organisers see the actions of the government as an attempt to “undermine Poland’s constitution and national ideals.”
