Electoral commission votes to accept previously rejected opposition financial report

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s National Electoral Commission (PKW) has voted to accept the 2023 campaign finance report of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS), meaning that the party will now no longer lose tens of millions of zloty in public funding.

The decision marks the latest twist in a long-running political and legal battle linked to the judicial reforms implemented by PiS itself when it was in power and which is also seen as having a potential impact on next year’s presidential election.

In August, the PKW rejected PiS’s campaign finance report for the 2023 parliamentary elections after finding campaign spending irregularities. PiS appealed against that decision, resulting in it being overturned this month by the Supreme Court.

However, two weeks ago, the PKW voted, by a narrow 5-4 majority, not to accept the Supreme Court ruling and to instead postpone a final decision on PiS’s financial report until the legal status of the court’s chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs, which issued the ruling, is “systematically regulated”.

However, today, in a new vote, two of the five members who had previously voted to postpone the issue decided instead to abstain. That meant there were now four votes in favour of accepting PiS’s financial report and only three against.

The two members who abstained, Ryszard Balicki and Konrad Składowski, were both nominated to the PKW by the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), the main group in Poland’s ruling coalition, whose majority of five members on the PKW had all previously voted to reject PiS’s financial report and to initially not accept the Supreme Court ruling.

In a copy of today’s PKW resolution obtained by PAP, it was noted that the decision to accept PiS’s financial report was made solely due to the Supreme Court’s ruling.

It added that such a ruling “must come from a body that is a court within the meaning of the constitution and the electoral code”, but said the PKW “does not prejudge that the chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs is a court and does not prejudge the effectiveness of the ruling”.

That is a reference to the fact that the chamber in question – which was created by PiS when it was in office and empowered by them to rule on election-related cases – is staffed entirely by judges nominated through the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) after it was also overhauled by PiS.

Those reforms, which brought the KRS under greater political control, have rendered it, and the judges appointed by it, illegitimate, according to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Poland’s current government, which replaced PiS in power one year ago, also does not recognise their legitimacy.

Later on Monday afternoon, the PKW’s chairman, Sylwester Marciniak, confirmed that the commission had voted to accept PiS’s financial report by a vote of 4-3. He noted that the decision was now final and cannot be appealed.

At the time of writing, there had been no explanation provided for the decision by two members of the PKW to change their vote.

However, when the PKW made its decision to initially not recognise the Supreme Court’s ruling two weeks ago, that prompted concern about the potential impact on next year’s presidential elections.

The chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs is responsible for settling any appeals against PKW decisions and for confirming the final results of elections. If the PKW refused to accept its legitimacy, that could cast doubt on the entire electoral process and its outcome.

Meanwhile, if the PKW’s decision to reduce PiS’s public subsidies by tens of millions of zloty had gone ahead, that would likely have had a negative impact on the opposition party’s ability to support the campaign of its favoured presidential candidate, Karol Nawrocki.

While speaking to the media after today’s meeting, Marciniak said that he would immediately send a letter to the finance ministry, which is responsible for distributing state subsidies to political parties. He said that meant the money should be transferred “within a few days”.

At the time of writing, the finance ministry had not commented on today’s developments. Previously it has said it would abide by decisions made by the PKW regarding PiS’s subsidies.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Pawel Malecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.