Unlock the digestive of free editor
Roula Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Poland’s nationalist opposition has reinforced its conflict with the pro-EU government led by Donald Tusk, with both parties accusing each other of trying to reduce the results of the future presidential elections.
Old politicians in the Law Law Party Law and Law (DISE) have accused the government of planning to intervene in the race, with the Constitutional Tribunal dominated by PIS starting an investigation into Tusk and its ministers on a plot suspected of a coup.
Tusk officials, meanwhile, have warned that Pis -appointed judges can cancel the election result if their favorite candidate does not win May.
The chairman of the President of Warsaw and the presidential candidate of the Tusk Civic Platform Party, Rafał Trzaskowski, is the predecessor. But a latest thought survey showed that Pis candidate Karol Nawrocki could get a runoff.
Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski last week warned of Polish judges potentially immulating the Constitutional Court of Romania. In December, the Court in Bucharest quashed a presidential election due to the claim of Russian intervention in favor of a far -right candidate who was unexpectedly in the first round of voting.
“We have the Romanian problem even more than some people think,” Sikorski told the POLSAT broadcaster, warning that the country was not “prepared” to address such a situation.
The President of the Poland Constitutional Court, Bogdan święczkowski, earlier announced an investigation into Tusk and his partners allegedly preparing a coup and the direction of a “organized crime group”. The senior judge, who was a senior prosecutor when he was in power, did not provide evidence of his claims.
Tusk said the probe was “grotesque” and “dangerous”. The Minister of Justice suspended the prosecutor appointed by święczkowski to investigate the alleged plot.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, a dirty candidate who appointed święczkowski in December, said voters may need to go on the road to demonstrate against the ‘manipulated’ results of the elections.
“Is it possible that today’s elections in individual countries – seemingly democratic – can only be won by those accepted in Brussels? I have this impression and I don’t like it very much,” Duda told online media zero.
Pisin has recently been encouraged by the Trump administration, after US Vice President JD Vance criticized Europe for allegedly hitting right voices and going “so much” as the annulment of elections.
You have no common value if you cancel the election because you don’t like the result, and this happened in Romania. You have no common value if you are afraid of your people who are silent, ”Vance said on Thursday.
Winning Poland’s presidential elections in May is essential for Tusk to unlock the agenda of reform of his coalition, including an adjustment of the judiciary he promised so that Brussels would not insult the country’s EU funds. But since taking office in 2023, his efforts have been stuck by PI with the help of judges Duda and the appointed Pis.
Pis has also accused the Tusk government of illegally holding party funds for the Scupper Nawrocki campaign. The Polish Electoral Commission – which has a narrow majority of members linked to the Tusk coalition – held part of the Pis state funds after finding irregularities in the expenses of the previous campaign.
In the wake of the vote, the Tusk government has warned that Poland is the most intended European country by Russian misinformation and internet attacks.
The real thing is that the law is being politically instrumental, according to Dorota Pionitek, professor of auxiliary policy at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. ” We are currently in a state of complete chaos, which will not be fine, “she said.
