“If the elections are declared invalid, President Andrzej Duda’s term will likely expire, and the Speaker of the Sejm will assume the office of the President. At that point, he will call new elections, as he will be acting as the President. He will also carry out presidential functions to the extent that includes, for instance, signing laws passed by parliament,” said Prof. Mirosław Wyrzykowski—a legal scholar and former judge of the Constitutional Tribunal, previously affiliated with, among others, ITI Holdings—during a broadcast on the state television channel that was illegally taken over.
Concerns about a so-called “Romanian scenario” are increasingly voiced in the context of the upcoming presidential elections in Poland. In Romania, the first round of presidential elections—won by Călin Georgescu—was annulled. The elections were nullified in December 2024, while votes from the second round were already being cast by overseas voters. The official reason cited was “external interference in the electoral process,” specifically alleged “Russian support” for one of the candidates.
A repeat election is scheduled for May, with the right-wing’s joint candidate, George Simion (AUR), currently leading in the polls.
“What’s happening in Romania is merely the first episode in a broader attempt by unelected elites in Brussels to seize power in all 27 EU countries. We served as their testing ground, and they will try again,”
Simion said in an interview with Michał Rachoń on TV Republika.
A Romanian scenario in Poland?
The ruling camp in Poland increasingly emphasizes the theme of alleged “Russian influence” on the presidential elections, and legal-technical scenarios surrounding the certification of election results have been under discussion for some time. An attempt to challenge the current legal framework—under which the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs of the Supreme Court certifies the validity of the election—has been initiated by Speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia. However, the President blocked the so-called incidental law.
On the illegally seized TVP channel, journalist Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf discussed the matter with Prof. Wyrzykowski, who remarked, “When the results of the second round are announced on June 1st, as expected, a period will follow during which the legality of the electoral process must be confirmed.”
“There will be a substantial number of objections filed as part of electoral protests. We already know this. In the previous elections, there weren’t many. But this time, we should expect that templates for protests are already being prepared today—and there will be thousands of them—if it turns out that our candidate did not win. Therefore, the court must resolve the electoral protests and confirm the validity of the elections. If the chamber—which is not a court—declares the elections invalid, then certain faits accomplis will emerge. Something must be done with those. In that case, if the elections are invalid, Andrzej Duda’s term will end, and the Speaker of the Sejm will assume the office of President. Then he will call new elections since he will be acting President. He will also fulfil presidential functions to the extent that includes, for example, signing bills passed by the parliament. So, we are facing a situation that will be difficult, complex, and politically fraught, but from the perspective of legal regulation, there is an open path forward,”
Wyrzykowski explained.
Who is Mirosław Wyrzykowski?
Between 1977 and 1979, he was a contract employee at the Dzerzhinsky Internal Affairs Officers’ School in Legionowo. From 1994 to 2001, he served on the Board of Directors of ITI Holdings, a company tied to a media-related communist-era functionary and an agent of the PRL military intelligence services. “The judge has been giving them legal advice since the mid-1980s,” wrote journalist Jarosław Jakimczyk, referring to Wyrzykowski, Mariusz Walter, and Jan Wejchert. In 2005, Wyrzykowski became a shareholder in the TVN joint-stock company. He was a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal from 2001 to 2010. In 2017, he became involved with the Osiatyński Archive, an organization studying the state of the so-called rule of law during the United Right’s rule. Wyrzykowski has supervised the doctoral dissertations of, among others, Adam Bodnar and Krzysztof Śmiszek.
Advanced preparations to take over the Presidential Palace?
The scenario outlined by Wyrzykowski was recently also reported by the weekly Wprost, which noted rumours circulating within Civic Platform (PO) about a “Szymon Hołownia team” allegedly working on “a legal basis for him to assume the office of head of state.”
Several months ago, Hołownia himself spoke about such a possibility.
In November 2024, the Speaker of the Sejm warned of potential issues with the Supreme Court’s recognition of the upcoming presidential elections as valid. According to the Constitution, a Supreme Court ruling is required for the newly elected president to take the oath of office.
“I probably don’t need to explain what will happen if the President is unable to take the oath and who would then perform presidential duties in his stead,”
he stated.