“Post-communists and liberal-leftists” trying to distort election result, claims Polish president

President Andrzej Duda claims that “post-communists and liberal-leftists” are trying to cast doubt on the result of this month’s presidential election, which was won by his fellow opposition-aligned conservative Karol Nawrocki.

His remarks refer to concerns raised by some figures in the ruling coalition – to which Duda and Nawrocki are opposed – about reported irregularities in vote counting at some polling stations. On Monday, a deputy prime minister became the latest to suggest that there had been “deliberate action” to change the results.

In a post on X on Monday, Duda wrote: “Attention! There is an impression that the post-communists, together with the liberal-leftists, want to distort the recent, already decided presidential elections in Poland and take away our freedom of choice.”

“Post-communism” is a term used by Duda and PiS to suggest that Poland did not truly become free in 1989, but rather the former communist elites and some elements of the opposition came to an arrangement that allowed them to retain influential positions in politics, the judiciary, the economy and the media.

“Let’s not give in, we voters!” continued Duda. “Let’s not allow ourselves to be deprived of those remnants of democracy and freedom that are still left after 13 December 2023! Let’s protect Poland!”

The date he referred to is when the current government, a coalition ranging from left to centre-right led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, came to power. Duda and the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party with which he is aligned have accused Tusk’s administration of violating the rule of law.

Some figures from the ruling coalition criticised Duda for his remarks, including Robert Biedroń, one of the leaders of The Left (Lewica).

“The President of the Republic is talking nonsense about mythical post-communists and liberals who want to steal the elections and destroy democracy?” wrote Biedroń on social media. “This is a joke, not a head of state.”

Last week, in the days after the presidential election, some figures from Tusk’s coalition began to point to examples of polling stations with apparently anomalous results, where support had swung dramatically from government-aligned candidate Rafał Trzaskowski in the first round of the election to Nawrocki in the second.

In some cases, it has been confirmed officially that mistakes were made in the reporting of the results. However, the number of votes involved so far is only a tiny fraction of Nawrocki’s winning margin of 369,591.

Tusk himself sought to calm tensions last week, saying that, while “every reported case of irregularities in vote counting is being checked and analysed…assuming in advance that the elections were rigged does not serve the Polish state”.

Nevertheless, some members of the ruling camp have said that the scale and nature of the irregularities merit closer investigation. They were joined on Monday by Krzysztof Gawkowski, who serves as deputy prime minister and minister for digital affairs.

“I find it hard to believe that in many places in Poland people made the same mistake, i.e. a candidate who lost suddenly won in the final vote count and vice versa,” said Gawkowski, quoted by news website Onet. “It no longer looks like a mistake, but like a deliberate action.”

The minister said that it was now important to “quickly clarify” whether this was in fact “an ‘organised mistake’, i.e. fraud, which had a very simple operational goal, namely to change the results of the final protocols in the district commissions”.

Gawkowski comes from The Left, a junior coalition partner to Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO). Earlier on Monday, however, another deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz of the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL) offered a very different message.

“The claims that the elections were rigged are unfounded and no one responsible is raising them,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz. “Starting a political war on this topic weakens Poland.”

Also speaking on Monday, the head of the National Electoral Commission (PKW), Sylwester Marciniak, said that reports of irregularities concerned at most around ten polling stations (out of almost 32,000) and therefore “should not affect the election result”.

Likewise, Ryszard Kalisz, a member of the PKW appointed by the ruling coalition, told broadcaster TVN that “the scale [of irregularities] is small”, numbering at most “hundreds” of votes.

Main image credit: Łukasz Błasikiewicz/KPRP