Presidential elections 2025. “Civic” vs. “party” candidate. What about financing the presidential campaign?

The pre-campaign before the presidential elections is gaining momentum; candidates fight for voters' votes. As the first, already in September, Sławomir Mentzen startedleader of the Confederation. Last weekend, November 23-24, the two largest parties presented the candidates they will support in the elections: the Civic Coalition will be represented by the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, and Law and Justice supported the president of the Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki. Marshal of the Sejm Szymon Hołownia (Trzecia Droga) and Marek Jakubiak from the Free Republicans group also announced their participation in the elections.

READ ALSO: The candidates started fighting for votes. Trzaskowski in the bakery, Nawrocki near the Sejm

As long as Trzaskowski is there though party candidate KO, Nawrocki officially does not have the status of a candidate of the PiS party. Before the presentation in Krakow on November 24, Law and Justice politicians emphasized that he was a “civic” and “non-party” candidate. Nawrocki himself also says this about himself. He is not a member of PiS or any other party. The President of the Institute of National Remembrance is prohibited from doing so by law. So it is valid in PiS narrative about the “citizen candidate”.

“I encourage all you, all Poles, who want to have a truly non-partisan president,” Karol Nawrocki said in Włoszczów (Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship) on November 25, appearing, however, in the company of the head of PiS structures in Świętokrzyskie and the deputy marshal of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship – also a PiS politician. Politicians of this party accompany him in subsequent public appearances.

On the other hand Szymon HołowniaSpeaker of the Sejm and chairman of Poland 2050, announcing his start in the presidential elections during a meeting with voters in Jędrzejów on November 13, said: “I want to say that in January next year I will be a candidate for the President of the Republic of Poland. I have decided to run and I have decided to tell you about it here, in Jędrzejów, at this meeting. I decided that I wanted to run for office, humbly apply for you to let me be there President of the Republic of Poland. I want to be an independent candidate for president and an independent president.” And anticipating accusations such as “but how independent if you have a political party”, he added: “Yes, I created a great movement, Poland 2050, with these wonderful people who are here today, but I am and will be independent.”

Even though Karol Nawrocki is not the official candidate of the party, PiS politicians assured already a day after the candidate's presentation that the party would support his campaign both organizationally and financially. He declared this, for example: PiS treasurer Henryk Kowalczyk: “We will support him not only with words, but organizationally and financially. It is difficult to imagine that Karol Nawrocki will pay from his private pocket, and he would not be allowed to do so, because he also has limits.” He estimated that the campaign would require approximately PLN 30 million.

On RMF FM, MP Marcin Przydacz said that Nawrocki “is supported by Law and Justice, so Law and Justice will also help him financially.” And Przemysław Czarnek declared on Radio Zet: “The amount we raise for Law and Justice – we encourage you to donate – we will be able to spend that much on the election campaign of the candidate we support, not the party's.”

However, are the rules for financing the presidential election campaign different in the case of a “citizen candidate” such as Nawrocki, a “party candidate” such as Trzaskowski or an “independent candidate” such as Hołownia? Does the fact that a candidate is running as a “citizen” make it easier or more difficult? We explain.

The answer to the first question is simple and follows from the regulations. Parties can officially name candidates either way, but: – The Electoral Code does not distinguish whether someone is a citizen candidate or not. There is no such category in the legal sense. Such a candidate has no advantages or disadvantages. His campaign – like any other – can be financed from three sources – explains Dr. Anna Frydrych-Depka, specializing in electoral law and assistant professor at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, in an interview with Konkret24.

However, he emphasizes that the presidential campaign is significantly different from the parliamentary and referendum campaigns. About the last two in detail we wrote in Konkret24now we will only deal with the presidential one.

Citizen candidate is therefore only a journalistic term, precisely for the purposes of the campaign (in this case: PiS). Because from a legal point of view, it can be said that every presidential candidate is a citizen. Pursuant to Art. 127 section 3 Constitution of the Republic of Poland signatures of 100,000 citizens are needed to be able to run in the elections. However, the party's support is important – it can help collect so many signatures.

However, art. 84 pairs 3 of the Electoral Code states that in presidential elections, electoral committees may be established only by voters. Formally, political parties cannot create election committees for their presidential candidates.

A candidate's election committee must consist of at least 15 citizens who have the right to vote (active electoral right). Only a committee may campaign for the proposed candidate. He appoints an electoral representative who then notifies the National Electoral Commission of the establishment of the voters' election committee.

– All candidate committees in the presidential elections are appointed in the same way. They are subject to the same regulations – emphasizes Dr. Frydrych-Depka.

Campaign-related expenses of presidential candidate election committees are covered from the money raised by each such committee. Let us emphasize: all funds spent on the campaign must be funds of the election committee. Electoral Code in Art. 132 pairs 4 indicates three sources from which a candidate's campaign may be financed:

1) Payments by Polish citizens with permanent residence in Poland. The sum of payments from a single Polish citizen cannot exceed 15 times the minimum wage in force on the day preceding the day of announcing the act ordering elections (most likely the minimum wage will amount to PLN 4,666 in January 2025and its fifteenfold amount – PLN 69,990). The candidate himself can also donate money to his committee, but in his case there is a limit of 45 times the minimum wage; next year it will most likely be PLN 209,970. 2) Electoral funds of political parties created to finance campaigns. 3) Bank loans taken out by the committee candidate's electoral campaign for election-related purposes.

PiS has already declared that it will financially support Karol Nawrocki's campaign – and as the above provision shows, there are no legal obstacles to this. This is a significant difference compared to the parliamentary campaign, for which funds can only come from the established party election fund.

Parties supporting presidential candidates is a common practice. After the 2020 presidential elections we describedthat the candidates supported by political parties – Małgorzata Kidawa Błońska (Civic Coalition), Robert Biedroń (Left Wing), Waldemar Witkowski (Labor Union) – owed almost all the funds at their disposal during the campaign to payments from the party's election fund. In the case of Kidawa-Błońska, it was as much as 99.93%. Only two candidates – Szymon Hołownia and Marek Jakubiak – owed their campaign funds solely to voters. In this way, the Hołownia Committee collected almost PLN 7.5 million, Jakubiak – over PLN 27,000. zloty.

READ MORE IN KONKRET24: : Hołownia plans to start the election campaign on January 8. There is a problem

However, it is not the case that the election committee can spend an unlimited amount on a candidate's campaign. There is a limit. It is counted in the manner described in Art. 327 of the Electoral Code. The number of voters in the country included in the voter register is multiplied by PLN 0.85. The limit applicable in the upcoming elections is not yet known, because the National Electoral Commission will publish information on the number of voters only within 14 days of ordering the elections by the Speaker of the Sejm. In the previous elections, this limit was PLN 19,139,155.20.

Within three months of the election, the committee's representative submits to the National Electoral Commission a financial report, i.e. detailed information on the committee's revenues, expenses and financial liabilities, including bank loans obtained and the conditions for obtaining them. It is published in “Monitor Polski” within 30 days.

According to art. 144 pairs 1 of the Electoral Code of the National Electoral Commission within six months: – accepts the report without reservations; – adopts a report indicating deficiencies, in particular if the funds were obtained, accepted or expended in violation of the provisions referred to in point 3(a). a, the financial resources do not exceed 1%. the total amount of revenue of the electoral committee; – rejects the report in the event of: a) obtaining or spending the funds of the election committee in violation of the regulations; b) conducting public collections contrary to the ban; c) the election committee of a political party or coalition election committee accepts financial resources from a source other than the Election Fund; d) the election committee of voters or the election committee of an organization accepts financial benefits in violation of the regulations; e) acceptance of non-pecuniary benefits by the electoral committee of a political party or coalition electoral committee.

This provision should be understood as follows: – The National Electoral Commission adopts a report indicating deficiencies if the total amount of violations in the cases described in subsections “a”, “d” and “e” does not exceed 1%. the total amount of revenue of the electoral committee; – rejects in the cases described in subparagraphs “a”, “d” and “e”, if the total amount of violations exceeds this 1 percent; – always rejects in cases from subsections “b” and “c”.

Finally, let us note an important difference: electoral committees in presidential elections – unlike parliamentary elections – are not entitled to reimbursement of campaign costs. This means, for example, the money spent by PiS or KO on the campaigns of candidates supported by these parties will be irrecoverable.

Moreover, rejecting the report or accepting it but indicating the deficiencies will only result in the need to return the full amount of the violation to the State Treasury. If the National Electoral Commission rejects the report of the election committee, it may appeal to the Supreme Court within 14 days. Its decision is final. Providing false data in the financial report to the representative of the election committee is punishable by up to two years in prison.