WARSAW — Law and Justice (PiS), the populist right-wing party that ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, is staring into an ever-deeper financial abyss after the National Electoral Commission (PKW) rejected its financial report for 2023.

“We are living in a state of complete anarchy, a sort of dictatorial anarchy,” PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said Tuesday, promising to appeal the decision.

If Monday’s PKW decision is upheld, the party stands to lose its entire 75 million złoty (€17.3 million) financing from the state budget for the remaining three years of this parliamentary term.

The PKW verdict comes ahead of May’s presidential election. It could undermine the party’s ability to finance a campaign in which it hopes to retain control of the presidency, currently held by Andrzej Duda, a PiS loyalist.

PiS hopes that winning the presidency would allow it to continue thwarting the agenda of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which could help the party regain power in the next parliamentary contest.

Maciej Chmielnicki, the PKW spokesperson, told the Polish Press Agency that Monday’s decision had been taken on similar grounds to an August finding that rejected PiS’s accounting for last year’s parliamentary election where the party lost power to the coalition led by Tusk. The agency said that PiS improperly raised and spent some 3.6 million złoty on campaigning.

The August decision has been appealed to Poland’s Supreme Court, which has not yet ruled.

PiS accused the election watchdog of carrying out a political hit job to “eliminate the only real opposition in Poland through unlawful administrative actions,” party spokesperson Rafał Bochenek said on X.

“It is difficult to speak of a fair presidential election in Poland,” Bochenek added, denouncing what he termed an effort to rig the vote and “establish an autocratic regime controlled by Tusk.”

Former Prime Minster Mateusz Morawiecki called the PKW decision “unprecedented” and warned the agency is “becoming a tool in the political fight.”

The ruling by the PKW adds to the problems PiS is facing since losing the election. 

Many of the party’s top officials are under investigation for alleged misdeeds during the eight years the party was in power. PiS’s key achievements, such as toughening abortion laws and politicizing the courts, are also under threat from the Tusk government.