Ex-PM Morawiecki charged with abusing power in trying to organise postal elections amid pandemic

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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.

Prosecutors have charged former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is now deputy leader of Poland’s main opposition party, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), with abusing his powers while serving as head of government.

Morawiecki – who last month voluntarily waived his parliamentary immunity – was summoned to the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw to hear the charges. Afterwards, he revealed that he had exercised his right not to give testimony until reviewing the case files against him.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Piotr Skiba, confirmed to broadcaster TVN that Morawiecki had been charged with “abuse of power and failure to perform official duties”, which can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.

The charges relate to a botched attempt to organise presidential elections by post at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Morawiecki denies wrongdoing and insists that the case against him has been brought for political reasons by the current administration.

“The ‘Tuskites’ and ‘Bodnarites’ will not spit in our faces,” said Morawiecki after emerging from the prosecutor’s office, referring to Prime Minister Donald Tusk and justice minister Adam Bodnar. “We will fight for the truth! We will fight for victory!”

“As prime minister, I was not afraid to make difficult but necessary and responsible decisions,” he continued. “The duty of the authorities is to take care of order and the efficient functioning of the state. I did this together with the entire PiS government in the time of crisis that came with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“If I had to make the decision again on preparing to organise elections at that time, I would do exactly the same,” added Morawiecki. “When the entire world froze due to the pandemic, I acted for Poland. I still do that to this day. I would not change anything.”

In spring 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic in Poland, the then PiS government sought to organise that year’s presidential elections entirely by post. It argued that this was necessary due to the epidemiological situation.

However, critics accused PiS of acting politically, because holding elections as quickly as possible would favour the PiS-backed incumbent Andrzej Duda, who was seeking a second term as president. They also claimed that the manner in which the government sought to organise those elections violated various laws.

Eventually, the postal elections were abandoned, despite the fact that at least tens of millions of zloty had been spent on preparing them. Normal elections took place instead, and were narrowly won by Duda.

In September 2020, an administrative court found that Morawiecki committed “a gross violation of the law” – including of the constitution and the electoral code – in ordering the elections. Last year, his appeal against that ruling was rejected by the Supreme Administrative Court, which opened the way for criminal charges.

Last month, Bodnar – who as well as being justice minister also serves as prosecutor general – asked parliament to lift Morawiecki’s immunity so that he could be charged with abusing his powers.

Normally, that request would be subject to a vote in parliament – where the ruling coalition has a majority – but Morawiecki chose instead to voluntarily give up his immunity. He called the case against him “politically motivated” and said “that truth, law and justice will prevail”.

However, speaking to broadcaster TVN, Maciej Gutowski, a professor of law at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, expressed doubt that Morawiecki would be able to successfully defend himself.

“In my opinion, it is legally indefensible to claim that Prime Minister Morawiecki acted in accordance with the law in force at the time,” said Gutowski.

“It is not the prime minister who conducts elections, but the National Electoral Commission,” he added. “The Supreme Administrative Court found that [Morawiecki’s] decision was issued in gross violation of the law and without a legal basis.”

After today’s developments, interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak wrote on social media that “the legacy of the PiS government is a former prime minister with criminal charges. This will go down in Polish history”.

Since replacing PiS in office in December 2023, the new government has energetically pursued cases against former PiS ministers and other officials for alleged abuses of power and corruption. No such cases have yet gone to trial.

PiS has described the actions of prosecutors against them as acts of “political revenge” being carried out by the Tusk administration.

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: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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.