Poland’s Biggest Opposition Party Fined Over Election Financing
(Bloomberg) -- Poland’s Electoral Commission has fined the former ruling Law & Justice party for misappropriating state money in a bid to win last year’s election, dealing a major blow to the nationalist opposition group.
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The Commission said Law & Justice, when it was still in government last year, funneled extra public money into its campaigning on top of its regular state allowance, which gave it an unfair advantage in October’s parliamentary election. It narrowly lost that ballot to an alliance of pro-European parties led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk won power after pledging to hold Law & Justice accountable for eight years of often turbulent rule but has so far largely failed to deliver. Thursday’s findings by the independent commission, which sets up and runs elections in Poland, could financially cripple the opposition party ahead of the presidential election next year.
“Law & Justice learns the true meaning of the words law and justice,” said Tusk in a post on social media platform X.
The Commission said that it rejected Law & Justice’s 2023 financial statement and cut its state subsidy for last year by about a fourth to 28 million ($7.2 million). It also reduced the party’s allowance for the next three years and may decide to withhold it entirely.
Significant cuts could impact the party’s ability to pay back a 15-million zloty debt in state-run PKO Bank Polski SA, the country’s edition of Newsweek reported before the commission’s ruling.
“There are some situations which we are convinced constitute a violation of the electoral campaigning rule,” Ryszard Balicki, a member of the commission, told a news conference in Warsaw. Among the most controversial incidents were public military events with the participation of Law & Justice party candidates, which he said constituted “indisputable election agitation.”
The Commission was also concerned about Law & Justice allegedly paying government agency employees to conduct campaign work on its behalf.
Law & Justice has denied any wrongdoing and promised to appeal the Commission’s verdict to the top court. Mariusz Błaszczak, the party’s senior lawmaker and former defense minister, said that the ruling showed Tusk sought to introduce a “Belarusian system,” in reference to Poland’s authoritarian neighbor.
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