Were there irregularities in Poland's presidential election?

Ever since Karol Nawrocki was declared the winner of the June 1 presidential election, The Polish right has been brimming over with confidence.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, is mobilizing his supporters, readying them for a tough battle with the pro-EU center-left government of prime minister Donald Tusk.

Kaczynski aims to work with Nawrocki to bring down Tusk's government and return to power at the latest after the next parliamentary election in 2027.

But news that Poland's Supreme Court has been flooded with complaints about the election is casting a pall over the opposition's jubilation.

50,000 complaints
Malgorzata Manowska, the first president of the Supreme Court of Poland, said more than 50,000 complaints had been received.
And it has been reported that there are still sacks full of protests yet to be registered.

Those filing complaints claim that there were irregularities in the count to the detriment of Nawrocki's pro-EU opponent, Rafal Trzaskowski.

'We will not tolerate such fraud'
Speaking at the first public PiS event since the election, Kaczynski on Sunday accused the governing coalition of seeking to call into question the result of the election.

"We will not tolerate such fraud, Kaczynski told supporters. "We will not allow the election to be stolen from us."

Nawrocki narrowly won the second round of the presidential election on June 1, getting roughly 51 per cent of the vote to Trzaskowski's 49 per cent.

Addressing the prime minister, the Nawrocki said: "The future president will not allow Poland to be robbed of its democracy and the freedom to elect its president."

Nawrocki, a 42-year-old historian, called on Tusk to "abstain from hysterical reactions and stop destroying Polish democracy." He is scheduled to be inaugurated on August 6.

Tusk calls for clarification
Tusk initially responded with great restraint to reports of electoral irregularities.

Immediately after the runoff election, reports appeared on social media, saying Nawrocki was often surprisingly ahead in constituencies where Trzaskowski had clearly been in front in the first round.

Because Tusk and other leading members of his party, Civic Platform (PO), said nothing about the allegations, PO lawmaker Roman Giertych seized the initiative. He uploaded to the Internet a form he said anyone who wanted to lodge a complaint could simply fill out.

"It was electoral fraud," declared the lawyer, who is one of PiS's fiercest critics.

To compromise Giertych, the right-wing television channel Republika has for days been broadcasting recordings of private telephone calls made by the politician. It is likely that they were recorded using Pegasus spy technology.

Prime minister versus president
Tusk has since cast his restraint aside, clashing with the outgoing president, Andrzej Duda, during a meeting of the National Security Council last week. Duda comes from the same political camp as Nawrocki. The two also clashed on X.

"Are you not just curious, as people, about the real election outcome? Of course you are. And, as we know, honest people have nothing to fear," Tusk posted, addressing Duda, Kaczynski and Nawrocki directly.

"Mr Tusk and his colleagues cannot accept defeat," Duda retorted. "I am not curious about the election result because I know the result. The State Electoral Commission announced it long ago," he posted, emphasising that Nawrocki had won by a margin of just under 370,000.

Government not calling for recount
The Supreme Court has registered about 10,000 of the written complaints submitted.

In the case of 13 commissions, a recount was ordered, with errors discovered in 11 constituencies.

In most cases, votes for Trzaskowski were counted for Nawrocki or the names of the candidates were mixed up in the official record. In one case, the public prosecutor has launched proceedings.

"We are not challenging the election result. We just want to clear up any problem cases," government spokesman Adam Szlapka said.

Many members of the ruling coalition, including deputy prime minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, are of the opinion that the scale of the irregularities is not enough to call into question Nawrocki's victory.

"No leader of the coalition parties has called for a recount of all votes," said Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, chairman of the New Left, on Tuesday after a coalition meeting.

Supreme Court to decide next week
The Supreme Court has until July 2 to investigate the complaints. The judges must give their verdict on the validity of the poll within 30 days of the election.

Two sittings of the Supreme Court are scheduled to be held this Friday. Wojciech Hermelinski, a former head of the electoral commission, doubts that this will be enough in view of the number of complaints involved.

Moreover, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court's decision will end the dispute because the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs (the Supreme Court chamber that decides on the validity of the election) was created by PiS and is not viewed as independent or impartial by either the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights.

"The Polish judiciary is complete chaos," Manowska said.

"I am not claiming that the presidential election was rigged," Bartosz Wielinski wrote in the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. "However, there are so many question marks in the debate about the result that a recount of all votes cast in the election runoff is becoming Poland's reason of state."

Political scientist Antoni Dudek has cautioned the government against pushing the "myth of rigged elections." This myth would be extremely dangerous for the stability of the Polish state and could lead to violence or even a civil war, Dudek told the television channel Polsat on Monday.

Meanwhile, Szymon Holownia, speaker of the Polish parliament, sought to pour oil on troubled waters.

"If the Supreme Court declares the election valid, I will call the National Assembly on August 6 so that Karol Nawrocki can take the oath of office," Holownia said on Tuesday.