Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek has filed charges against ECR leader Mateusz Morawiecki, former Agriculture Minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski, and PiS party leader Mariusz Błaszczak. Żurek is seeking to bring the opposition politicians to trial before the State Tribunal. 

“The attack on me and Mariusz Błaszczak is not a settlement, but a brazen attempt to redirect Poles’ attention to something other than the gigantic gap in healthcare and planned electricity price increases,” said Mateusz Morawiecki, a PiS MP and former prime minister, in his assessment of the situation, according to wPolityce, which noted the move “seems bizarre, considering that the new prosecutor’s office had already brought charges against each of them in various cases.” 

Since its efforts have continued to fail, Żurek is trying to prove himself to Civic Coalition voters by now dragging the three before the State Tribunal.

“(Prime Minister) Donald Tusk is serving us ‘Żurek with a twist’ by adding the threat of being brought before the State Tribunal to the prosecutor’s trumped-up charges,” Morawiecki wrote on X.

“The attack on me and Mariusz Błaszczak is not a settlement, but a brazen attempt to redirect Poles’ attention to something other than the gigantic hole in healthcare and the planned increases in electricity prices,” he added. 

Over the past few months, Morawiecki, Błaszczak, and Ardanowski have faced charges in criminal proceedings conducted by the new prosecutor’s office. In February of this year, Morawiecki was charged with exceeding his authority and failing to fulfill his official duties regarding the organization of the 2020 postal elections, writes wPolityce. 

In March of this year, Błaszczak was charged in an investigation conducted by the Military Affairs Department of the newly established District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw. The case concerns the declassification and subsequent public disclosure in September 2023 of part of the document concerning the deployment plan of the Polish Armed Forces “Warta.” 

In August of this year, the newly established prosecutor’s office filed an indictment against the former Minister of National Defense.

Ardanowski was also charged in March. The investigation, conducted by the newly appointed Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, involves, among other things, causing bank and loan guarantees to be granted in violation of applicable law.

Błaszczak, a former Minister of National Defense and currently head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) caucus, also told journalists that these were “people’s games” and that “baseless and trumped-up allegations” were being made. He emphasized that the prosecutor himself, in his opinion, lacked impartiality, as he claimed he had posted online that he had been persecuted by the PiS government.

“We’re dealing with a violation of the law. We’re dealing with an unprecedented situation; communism has returned,” he said.