Thanks to historically high voter turnout, budget transfers to political parties will break an all-time record, “Rzeczpospolita” reported in an article on subsidies for parties.
“PLN 25.9 million is the amount that the party with the best result in the elections, i.e. Law and Justice, will receive every year. The Civic Coalition will receive PLN 25.1 million, Trzecia Droga – PLN 15.1 million, New Left – PLN 9. PLN 8 million, and Confederation – PLN 8.4 million. The total payments will amount to PLN 84.2 million and is a record,” the newspaper wrote.
“Rzeczpospolita” recalled that in the past term, PiS received PLN 23.5 million annually, KO – PLN 19.8 million, SLD (renamed New Left) – PLN 11.5 million, PSL – PLN 8.3 million, and Konfederacja – PLN 6.9 million. The sum reached PLN 70.4 million, PLN 14 million less than currently.
Record subsidies for political parties are coming
The newspaper reported that the new subsidies will exceed not only those from the current term, but also from each term after 2010, when the Sejm reduced the money for the party by half. After the 2011 elections, the total amount of subsidies was PLN 54.4 million, and after the 2015 elections – PLN 58.2 million.
“Rz” emphasized that the payments would go up due to the highest turnout since the fall of the Polish People’s Republic, because in accordance with the Act on Political Parties you pay for every vote.
However, the procedure for calculating the subsidy is not simple and assumes that the amount paid per vote decreases with the amount of support. The groups with low and medium results are rewarded the most, so the record was also possible because as many as three medium-sized parties got into the Sejm. The all-time subsidies are also influenced by the fact that the parties that did not exceed the threshold performed poorly in the elections.
Subsidies for the mandates of MPs and senators
As the daily pointed out, the budget does not end with subsidies. Parties will also receive one-off subsidies for each MP and senator seat they win. The calculations take into account the total expenditure of committees on the campaign. For example, after the 2019 elections, PiS received PLN 30 million and KO received PLN 25.5 million.
“Although all parties will receive record amounts, one of them will feel the financial injection the most – Szymon Hołownia’s Polska 2050. In accordance with the coalition agreement, the subsidy for the Third Way will be divided equally with PSL, but PLN 7.5 million is still – as activists admit – an astronomical sum. All because so far it has had to cope without money from the budget,” writes “Rz” on Thursday.
Election results
On Tuesday, the National Electoral Commission published data from 100 percent of voting precincts. According to them, PiS won 35.38 percent of the votes, Civic Coalition – 30.70 percent, Third Road – 14.40 percent, New Left – 8.61 percent, and Confederation – 7.16 percent of the votes.
PiS won 194 seats in the Sejm elections, KO – 157; Third Road – 65; New Left – 26; Confederation – 18. This means that the democratic opposition wins 248 seats in the Sejm. The parliamentary majority is 231 seats.
Main photo source: Piotr Nowak/PAP