Poland’s PiS pleads for donations after penalties for illegal spending By Reuters

WARSAW (Reuters) – Lawmakers from Poland’s nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party will give him part of their salaries, its deputy head said on Friday, after sanctions over misuse of state funds left it in -a serious financial crisis.

The electoral commission decided on Thursday to cut tens of millions of zlotys from PiS funding, saying it illegally used state money in its campaign for the 2023 general election.

PiS Vice President Mariusz Blaszczak said MPs from both houses of the Polish parliament and the European Parliament would give the party part of their salary.

“PiS lawmakers will financially support our party through donations starting in September,” Blaszczak told a press conference. “Deputies and senators will pay a minimum of 1,000 zlotys ($260) per month, and MEPs a minimum of 5,000 zlotys.”

PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said the commission’s decision was “scandalous”.

He called on “Polish patriots” to financially support the party in a bid to prevent Donald Tusk’s pro-European Civic Coalition (KO) from winning next year’s presidential election.

The election commission said PiS illegally spent 3.6 million zlotys ($931,000) in the 2023 election campaign. It listed campaigning at events to encourage military recruitment and an announcement from the justice ministry as examples of misuse of the funds.

As punishment, PiS will lose about 10 million zlotys ($2.6 million) in funding related to its electoral performance in 2023 and will also lose about 10 million zlotys per year in annual funding until the end of the current parliamentary term in 2027. He will also lose must repay the money he illegally spent.

The commission has warned that it could lose its annual funding entirely.

Tusk’s chief of staff, Jan Grabiec, was not sympathetic to PiS’s problems.

“It would have been enough not to steal,” he wrote on social media platform X. “Then there would be no need to complain now.”

($1 = 3.8595 zlotys)