Parliamentary speaker to swear in Polish president-elect despite doubts
Nawrocki, a conservative candidate supported by the ruling PiS party, won the runoff election held on 1 June. He defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who represented Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform coalition.
After the election, numerous reports emerged of vote-counting errors at various polling stations, raising concerns about the integrity of the result. The Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, which upheld the election's validity this week, is not recognised as an independent court by many international tribunals, experts, judges, and the current government.
Critics point to the fact that judges in this chamber were appointed by the politicised National Council of the Judiciary, created under controversial 2017 reforms by the PiS government.
Despite these concerns, Hołownia has decided to proceed with the inauguration.
'There are doubts regarding the status of the Supreme Court's Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber. There are no doubts about whom the Polish people elected,' he wrote on X. 'That's why I will (...) administer the presidential oath to Karol Nawrocki.'
He also stressed that any vote irregularities 'must be thoroughly investigated by the prosecutors'.
Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar of Tusk's Civic Platform was asked whether Hołownia might refuse to swear in Nawrocki. Bodnar said he is inclined to send a letter detailing 'all the procedural irregularities that occurred (in the Supreme Court's decision)'.
'What Speaker Hołownia decides to do with it will be entirely up to him,' Bodnar added, without commenting on what he would do in Hołownia's place.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek, Barbara Bodalska | Euractiv.pl)
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