Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that Russian hackers were attacking the website of his Civic Platform party website in advance of Sunday’s first-round presidential election.
Nearly 29 million Poles go to the polls in a two-round process that will determine the country’s defence policy and EU path for years to come.
The final days of the campaign have seen warnings by Poland’s national cybersecurity agency (Nask) about operations on social media “aimed at destabilising the electoral process”. Mr Tusk wrote on Twitter/X that a known Russian hacker group was “conducting intensive activities ... the attack is ongoing”.
Though 13 candidates are running for president, Sunday’s poll is the latest proxy clash between liberal conservative Mr Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, his political nemesis and national conservative opposition leader.
Each of their parties has fielded a presidential candidate to help – or hinder – the Tusk government’s policy ambitions and efforts to restore the rule of law.
Mr Tusk’s “hacker” warning on Friday came as his party’s presidential election candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, dropped three points in a final poll to 30 per cent support.
Five years ago the 53-year-old liberal Warsaw mayor lost narrowly a problematic pandemic-era presidential poll. Today he is still seen as a pro-EU and liberal candidate, but has shifted with the public mood to take a harder stance in the campaign against migration and welfare for Ukrainians in Poland.
A Trzaskowski victory would end the Tusk government’s uneasy cohabitation – and legislative deadlock – with outgoing two-term president Andrzej Duda, an ally of Mr Kaczynski.
Poland’s president has far-reaching control of the armed forces and has powers to veto or stall legislation, something Mr Duda has done regularly in the last 18 months.
With Mr Duda unable to run for a third term, Mr Kaczynski’s national conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) has fielded Karol Nawrocki.
The 42-year-old conservative historian is head of the Institute of National Memory and has a steady 25 per cent support in polls.
With no candidate likely to take at least 50 per cent support, Polish election rules mean a second ballot – mostly likely between Mr Trzaskowski and Mr Nawrocki – will be held on June 1st.
In a series of heated debates, candidates have clashed over housing, healthcare, abortion, refugees and Russia – but neither Mr Trzaskowski nor Mr Nawrocki landed a knockout blow on each other.
Complicating the race is Slawomir Mentzen, a 38-year-old social media-savvy candidate of the far-right Confederation Party. His initial popularity among younger male voters, with anti-EU rhetoric and agitation against refugees, has slid after he backed university fees and a total abortion ban, even in cases of rape.
Transfers will be key in the second round poll on June 1st, with Mr Trzaskowski likely to secure voters from losing candidates of Mr Tusk’s coalition partners. As the government-backed candidate, he has become a target of voters who backed Mr Tusk’s return to power and are frustrated with the coalition’s progress.
That, and signs of growing voter apathy after a recent run of elections, mean turnout could be as much a deciding factor as any candidate’s arguments.
Even before this week’s cyber attack warnings, analysts saw the election as a major stress test for Polish democracy, given PiS and far-right candidates have already been preparing narratives of stolen and rigged elections – to be activated if they lose.
“Meanwhile a victory of Nawrocki would also mean snap parliamentary elections and Poland moving away from its strategic partners in Europe,” said Mateusz Mazzini, a Warsaw-based political analyst. “It can change the landscape entirely for a lot of people in Europe.”
