The Law and Justice party's coffers are empty – the weekly ” reported on Tuesday afternoon (August 20).Newsweek“, citing party sources. Despite the lack of funds, the group's liabilities have not disappeared. Among them is a 15 million loan taken out for last year's election campaign. Its repayment deadline was the end of July.
PiS cash is empty? “The party is unable to repay a multi-million loan”
PIS had time to pay credit until the end of July. As the weekly pointed out, it is not entirely clear whether it was about paying off the entire debt or just one installment. Despite this, no money were not received by PKO BP. The repayment date was related to the expected decision of the National Electoral Commission regarding the return money for the autumn campaign. However, there is still no decision, because the commission is still investigating irregularities in the financing of the group's campaign. This is a serious problem, because another election campaign is just around the corner. “If we don't get the money from the budget subsidy, we won't exist,” admitted one of the PiS politicians in an interview with “Newsweek”.
From August, PKO BP is to start imposing punitive interest on PiS. In response to question about whether the group's account had been seized, a bank representative told the weekly that “this information is covered by bank secrecy”. According to experts cited by “Newsweek”, if PiS does not repay the loan, the party may face enforcement proceedings or the seizure of movable property. – If the bank and PiS do not reach an agreement, the bank will collect the money as much as it can. It is worse for PiS to wait, because then it may not get anything, than to admit its guilt and get most of the money – the expert assessed in an interview with “Newsweek”.
The National Electoral Commission will decide on PiS's financial report. What if it rejects it?
According to the Act on Political Parties, if the National Electoral Commission questions the financial report, the party is at risk of losing 75 percent of this amount and the same percentage when it comes to the so-called return for the campaign. In the years 2019-2023, PiS received 23.5 million zlotys in subsidies from the budget annually. After winning the elections, this amount increased to 25.9 million zlotys. In total, this amounts to about 104 million in this term. 75 percent of this amount therefore gives almost 78 million zlotys. To this should also be added 75 percent of the approximately 30 million zlotys of campaign costs. In total, this amounts to about 100 million zlotys that PiS may lose after the decision of the National Electoral Commission.
On July 31, the National Electoral Commission did not make a decision on the PiS financial report. It postponed it until August 29. Instead, it requested additional information from the Government Legislation Centre and NASK (a state research institute). This includes information on the costs of analyses commissioned by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Digital Affairs in the weeks preceding the parliamentary elections. As for the Government Legislation Centre, the National Electoral Commission wants to learn about the duties and remuneration of individual employees of the RCL.