The Polish conservative opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), has accused a foreign-funded left-wing NGO of interfering in the upcoming Polish presidential elections by promoting one of the candidates, liberal Rafał Trzaskowski, and attacking his rivals, the conservative Karol Nawrocki and right-wing Sławomir Mentzen.
On Wednesday, May 14th, the NASK Disinformation Analysis Centre said it had identified political ads on Facebook that may have been financed from abroad.
A spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company Meta said it had seen no evidence of foreign interference. Nevertheless, NASK said it had informed Poland’s Internal Security Agency and work was underway to determine the origin and financing of the advertisements. A few hours later, Meta blocked the adverts in question.
The source of the ads was two anonymous accounts, which, according to media reports, are closely linked to Akcja Demokracja, a left-wing NGO that seems to have cooperated with the Hungarian-Austrian company Estratos, led by Ádám Ficsor, a minister in the former Hungarian left-wing government of Gordon Bajnai.
Estratos has close ties to the U.S. Democratic Party, and Ádám Ficsor was instrumental in organising the illegal channeling of millions of U.S. dollars into the Hungarian left-wing opposition’s electoral campaign during the 2022 Hungarian elections.
The president of the board of directors at Akcja Demokracja is Jakub Kocjan, who has strong ties to the Polish left-liberal government, and who received an award from the Mayor of Warsaw—who is none other than Rafał Trzaskowski—for his “pro-democratic and anti-fascist activities.”
“Everything indicates that we are dealing with illegal financing of Rafał Trzaskowski’s campaign,” leading PiS politicians said at a press conference on Thursday, May 15th, adding that they have submitted a criminal complaint to the prosecutor’s office.
💬 Przewodniczący KP PiS @mblaszczak: KP PiS podejmuje działania związane ze skandalem, jaki ma miejsce w naszym kraju. Wszystko na to wskazuje, że mamy do czynienia z nielegalnym finansowaniem kampanii R. Trzaskowskiego. Składamy zawiadomienie do Prokuratury, a po wyborach… pic.twitter.com/JOxD7Ww0z8
— Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (@pisorgpl) May 15, 2025
According to PiS, the revelations amount not only to serious abuses but “they are an attempt to steer the elections through foreign influence.”
