Will PiS lose money? PKW member Ryszard Kalisz: in my opinion, the financing of the PiS committee was illegal in many areas

On Wednesday, the National Electoral Commission accepted the financial report from the parliamentary elections of the Left Committee without reservations, while indicating shortcomings of, among others, the committees of the Civic Coalition, Third Way and Confederation.

The hearing on the PiS report was adjourned until August 29.

PiS may lose almost PLN 19.5 million of the almost PLN 26 million subsidy.

READ MORE: The National Electoral Commission accepted the reports of eight parties. But not PiS

This issue was commented on in the Thursday edition of the “Tak jest” program by attorney Richard Kaliszmember of the National Electoral Commission. – Ryszard Balicki (member of the National Electoral Commission – ed.), a constitutional professor from the University of Wrocław, filed the application because he identified irregularities in two areas and did not have precise data on the benefits that the PiS electoral committee illegally received during the election campaign, i.e. from August 8 to October 13 – he said.

– I would like to point out that these two areas are RCL – to use the conventional name – and NASK. We received the materials in these matters only on July 26, just before the last meeting of the commission. We could familiarize ourselves (with them – ed.) from Monday – he noted.

As he said, “these cases have been identified”. – The investigation into RCL has been ongoing for only two months, and NASK is a completely new case that has come to us – he added.

Government representatives, pointing to irregularities in the financing of the PiS committee, mention, among others, promotional and agitation activities undertaken by persons employed in the Government Legislation Centre in favour of the then president of the RCL, who was running in the elections, as well as activities conducted by the Scientific and Academic Computer Network (NASK), concerning the method of preparing online reports in 2022-2023, among others on the “credibility of Law and Justice”.

– I have already defined many areas where, in my opinion, financing was unlawful – Kalisz emphasized.

As he pointed out, “a serious problem lies in Article 149 of the Electoral Code”. – We must precisely indicate the amount of this benefit. And it is not as even eminent experts in criminal law say, that it is as it is in the charges or in the indictment at least, because we must indicate the exact amount to the zloty, because our resolution is an enforcement title and later the state, i.e. the tax authorities, collect this money from these committees – the TVN24 guest pointed out.

Article 149 of the Electoral Code concerns the forfeiture to the State Treasury of financial benefits received in violation of the regulations.

The consequence of rejecting the financial report of the electoral committee may be a loss of up to 75% of the entity subsidy that the party receives in connection with the mandates won (so-called campaign reimbursement) and the subsidy that the party receives from the state budget for its statutory activities if it won at least 3% of votes in the parliamentary elections. The reduction – as in the case of subsidies – cannot, however, exceed 75% of the amount of the subsidy.

Any rejection of the financial report of the PiS committee means taking away the party's Jaroslaw Kaczynski up to 75 percent of the nearly PLN 26 million annual subsidy.

According to the National Electoral Commission's calculations, the expected annual subsidy for PiS amounts to PLN 25,933,375, which is the maximum amount that can be taken from the party is PLN 19,450,031.25.

READ ALSO: We reveal deficiencies in PiS financial report. Hermeliński: this is evidence for the National Electoral Commission