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Poland’s nationalist opposition has amplified its conflict with the pro-EU government led by Donald Tusk, with both sides accusing each other of attempting to skew the results of upcoming presidential elections.
Senior politicians in the ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) party have accused the government of planning to interfere in the race, with the PiS-dominated constitutional tribunal launching a probe into Tusk and his ministers over an alleged coup plot.
Tusk officials meanwhile have warned that PiS-appointed judges could annul the result of the election if their preferred candidate does not win the May vote.
Warsaw mayor and presidential candidate of Tusk’s Civic Platform party, Rafał Trzaskowski, is the frontrunner. But one recent opinion poll showed PiS candidate Karol Nawrocki could narrowly win a run-off.
Donald Tusk’s reform agenda has been stalled by PiS with the help of President Andrzej Duda and PiS-appointed judges © Pawel Supernak/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski last week warned about Polish judges potentially emulating Romania’s constitutional court. In December, the court in Bucharest cancelled a presidential election due to alleged Russian meddling in favour of a far-right candidate who had unexpectedly topped the first round of voting.
“We have the Romanian problem even more than some people think,” Sikorski told broadcaster Polsat, warning that the country was “not prepared” to handle such a situation.
The president of Poland’s constitutional court, Bogdan Święczkowski, earlier this month announced an investigation into Tusk and his partners for allegedly preparing a coup d’état and running an “organised crime group”. The top judge, who was a senior prosecutor when PiS was in power, provided no evidence for his claims.
Tusk said the probe was “grotesque” and “dangerous”. The justice minister suspended the prosecutor appointed by Święczkowski to investigate the alleged plot.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, a PiS nominee who appointed Święczkowski in December, said voters might need to take to the streets to demonstrate against ‘’manipulated’’ results of the election.
“Is it possible that today elections in individual countries — seemingly democratic — can only be won by those who are accepted in Brussels? I have this impression and I don’t like it very much,” Duda told online media Kanał Zero.
PiS has recently been emboldened by the Trump administration, after US vice-president JD Vance criticised Europe for allegedly cracking down on rightwing voices and going “as far” as cancelling elections.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, right, with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, says voters might need to take to the streets to protest © Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images
‘’You don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result, and that happened in Romania. You do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them,” Vance said on Thursday.
Winning Poland’s presidential election in May is key for Tusk to unlock his coalition’s reform agenda, including an overhaul of the judiciary he promised in order for Brussels to unfreeze the country’s EU funds. But since taking office in 2023, his efforts have been stalled by PiS with the help of Duda and PiS-appointed judges.
PiS has also accused the Tusk government of illegally withholding party funding to scupper Nawrocki’s campaign. The Polish electoral commission — which has a narrow majority of members aligned with Tusk’s coalition — withheld part of the PiS state funding after finding irregularities in past campaign spending.
In the run-up to the vote, Tusk’s government has been warning that Poland is the European country most targeted by Russian disinformation and cyber attacks.
The real issue is that the law is being politically instrumentalised, according to Dorota Piontek, adjunct politics professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. ‘‘We’re currently in a state of complete chaos, which doesn’t bode well,” she said.
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