Polish opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) is facing the loss of PLN75mn (€17.3mn) in state financing following a decision by the State Electoral Commission (PKW) rejecting the party’s financial report for 2023.

The decision by the PKW, which leaked to the media earlier this week, was published on November 20. PKW questioned PLN3.6mn (€840,000) PiS had spent on the campaign, which allegedly saw the party blur boundaries between state and party resources for electoral gain.

In line with Polish regulations on campaign financing, it is enough to question 1% of overall campaign spending to reject a party’s financial report. 

PiS, which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023,  said the PKW acted on orders of the incumbent majority to hamper the party’s chances in the upcoming presidential election in May next year and “eliminate the only real opposition in Poland through unlawful administrative actions”, party spokesperson Rafał Bochenek said in a post on X.

The PKW decision could mean that PiS will not receive a combined PLN75mn of state financing in the next three years, so until the end of the current parliamentary term.

That is complicating PiS’s plans for the presidential election in which the party hopes to keep control of the president’s office after the incumbent Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, steps down after completing his second and final term.

PiS is expected to announce a presidential frontrunner for the 2025 election in the coming days.

Earlier this year in a separate decision, PKW rejected PiS’s campaign financing report on the same grounds of misusing public funds to amplify its electoral outreach. 

The party has since called on its supporters to donate money but it appears unlikely the donations will reach the level of the state financing.

“We definitely won’t go bankrupt,” Robert Telus, former PiS’s minister of agriculture, told Wprost weekly, adding that the party supporters are donating “significant amounts” of money. When asked for specifics, Telus said the donations exceeded PLN10mn, several times less than the financing loss the party is facing.

PiS has until November 27 to appeal against the decision by the PKW in the Supreme Court.

While the party is nearly certain to do so, a verdict by the Supreme Court's Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber will be questioned since the chamber is considered illegal in the light of PiS's controversial judiciary reforms from when the party was in power.