More than PLN 900,000 from the foundations of Orlen, PKO BP, and the Polish Business Roundtable flowed to an entity running a brutal online campaign targeting Rafał Trzaskowski’s rival, Karol Nawrocki. As Niezależna.pl has established, the Warsaw prosecutor’s office has decided not to open proceedings into the “Your Vote Matters” foundation, which was responsible for the hate campaign ahead of the presidential election.
As Niezależna.pl has learned, at the end of May the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office refused to open an investigation into the “Your Vote Matters” foundation, which conducted a hate campaign online during the presidential election. The entity’s donors included the Polish Business Roundtable Foundation, the foundations of ORLEN and PKO BP, as well as numerous property development companies.
Hateful videos. Support from State Treasury-linked entities
The case concerns recordings posted, among other places, on YouTube. A channel called “Your Vote Matters” operated there. Since September 2023, it had been publishing short videos, each lasting several dozen seconds. Their recurring theme was to portray politicians and voters of the current opposition in a negative light, in line with the narrative promoted by the ruling coalition. In April 2025, four new videos appeared, showing people with black bars over their eyes speaking about “the return of our law and our justice” after the presidential election.
According to the prosecutor’s office, on June 5, 2024, the Orlen Foundation concluded a donation agreement with the “Your Vote Matters” Foundation, based in Wrocław. The subject of the agreement was the implementation of a project entitled “Your Vote Matters turnout campaign,” covering the cost of advertising broadcasts on radio stations from June 3, 2024, to July 15, 2024. The donation of PLN 300,000 was paid in a single transfer to the foundation’s bank account.
A further PLN 300,000 was contributed by the PKO BP Foundation. Formally, the agreement concerned support for the implementation, by June 20, 2024, of a project entitled “Your Vote Matters,” a turnout campaign informing people about the European Parliament elections.
Another PLN 300,000 for the “Your Vote Matters” foundation came from the Polish Business Roundtable Foundation.
The “Your Vote Matters” foundation was already very active in a disinformation campaign in 2023. The founder and beneficial owner of the entity is Tomasz Kurzewski, the majority shareholder in ATM Grupa, a company linked to the Echo 24 television station operating in Lower Silesia. The foundation’s board also includes Marcin Jerzy Chmielewski, who is connected with the same production company. In 2023, Echo 24 produced Civic Coalition campaign spots worth hundreds of thousands of PLN.
In addition to the “Your Vote Matters” foundation, Kurzewski also sits on the board of another foundation, “City of Children.” That foundation, in turn, has its own company, “MiniCiti Non-profit.” Its PR specialist is Katarzyna Ślimak, a long-time former director of Rafał Trzaskowski’s office and head of his cabinet. Apart from her, however, the company’s manager is Małgorzata Trzaskowska, the wife of the mayor of Warsaw and Civic Coalition candidate.
Prosecutor’s reasoning. Nawrocki won – so there is no case
In May 2025, the PiS parliamentary club filed a notification with the prosecutor’s office. It was based primarily on two provisions of the Electoral Code that, according to the complainants, had been breached in this case: Article 506, concerning the openness and transparency of the financial activity of election committees, and Article 507, concerning the acceptance of prohibited benefits by an election committee, in this case, Trzaskowski’s committee.
According to those who filed the notification, the disinformation contained in the campaign spots was intended to undermine public trust in institutions and specific individuals, and could have resulted both in public harm, for example, the violation of the democratic electoral process, and personal harm, such as damage to the good name of a specific person. The content promoted by the foundation clearly targeted Karol Nawrocki, Rafał Trzaskowski’s direct rival and therefore the opponent of the Civic Coalition candidate, the PiS club argued.
For a year, investigators from the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office pondered what to do with the case and ultimately decided to refuse to open an investigation. Niezależna.pl obtained the document. It is signed by prosecutor Monika Harasim. It contains a bizarre justification for the refusal. The key argument is that the Supreme Court recognized Karol Nawrocki’s election, so there is no case, because there was also no benefit for Trzaskowski’s campaign staff.
“The notification does not show whether an unfavorable disposal of property took place, nor does it show how representatives of the above-mentioned foundations, Orlen and PKO, were supposed to have acted to the detriment of the companies, or which companies were allegedly harmed,”
the prosecutor’s office states in the document.
Prosecutor Stevie Wonder
Niezależna.pl asked one of the authors of the notification, MP Andrzej Śliwka of PiS, for comment.
“If there are cases that will have to be revisited, the issue of illegal financing of Rafał Trzaskowski’s campaign is certainly in the top three. The prosecutor’s political decision to refuse to open proceedings is yet another example of how a politicized prosecutor’s office protects the Civic Coalition network, Rafał Trzaskowski, and his circle. We all saw how the entire state apparatus and institutions dependent on the authorities became involved in illegally supporting and financing Trzaskowski’s campaign. The ‘Your Vote Matters’ foundation is an example of blatant cronyism combined with a brutal hate campaign. Everyone remembers those disgusting spots prepared by Trzaskowski’s people. Everyone saw it. They were caught red-handed, and Żurek’s man refuses to open an investigation. You would have to be a legal Stevie Wonder not to see that a crime may have been committed there,”
he told Niezależna.pl.