Donald Tusk’s liberal Polish government has alleged ongoing foreign interference in the upcoming presidential election, the first round of which is scheduled for May 18th.
The vague allegations focus on Facebook advertisements that may have been paid for abroad—an allegation that the social media platform’s parent company Meta has disputed. “Our investigation has confirmed that the admin associated with these pages is authentic and based in Poland. We have seen no evidence of foreign interference,” a Meta spokesman said.
Reuters reports the ads “sought to discredit” conservative presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki and nationalist candidate Sławomir Mentzen, and “ostensibly back [liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał] Trzaskowski, but could have been a provocation.”
The Brussels-backed decision to scrap the first round of Romanian presidential elections has set a dangerous precedent, which the latest Polish ‘disclosure’ could risk repeating. The supposedly guilty foreign power has not yet been named, but one or more predictable suspects could emerge in the days ahead.
Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski recently claimed Poland is facing an “unprecedented attempt” by Russia to meddle in the election. “This is being done … [by] spreading disinformation in combination with hybrid attacks on Polish critical infrastructure in order to paralyse the normal functioning of the state,” he said.
This development follows a recent pattern of the European Union blaming Russia for its homegrown mishaps, including Brexit. Shortly before the announcement from Poland, Britain’s farce-prone Remainer lawyer Joylon Maugham held Moscow responsible for the Supreme Court decision that women are women and that biological sex is real.
