Apartment controversy hits Polish right-wing presidential runner
Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing presidential candidate supported by the main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), has acquired a small flat from an elderly citizen in exchange for support and care, which Nawrocki is not providing, a website has reported.
The Onet news and entertainment outlet wrote on Monday that Jerzy Z. (surname withheld under Polish privacy laws - PAP), an ailing 80-year-old man, had transferred ownership of his studio flat to Nawrocki and his wife in 2017 in exchange for care and assistance.
"There is no doubt that at the moment Nawrocki is not providing care or assistance to Jerzy," Onet wrote. "We established that the man had been placed in one of the state-run care homes in Gdansk and it is the employees of the facility that are taking care of him."
According to Onet, Nawrocki claims he has been unable to provide care to Jerzy Z., because he lost contact with him in December 2024 and was unable to locate him. However, the Onet team managed to establish the old man's whereabouts within hours.
Nawrocki's campaign spokeswoman, Emilia Wierzbicki, wrote on social media that Nawrocki had helped Jerzy Z. for years and that Nawrocki gave him money to buy out the flat, which the old man promised to hand over to Nawrocki in return for ongoing support.
Polish cities have offered long-time residents of council flats the possibility to buy out the properties for a fraction of the market price.
"When the flat formally became the property of Karol Nawrocki, he continued to help Mr Jerzy, regularly paying the bills, doing shopping, buying medicines, etc.," Wierzbicki wrote.
Marcin Mastalerek, head of President Andrzej Duda's office, told the private Radio Zet on Monday that the recent report was orchestrated by Polish security services.
Duda and Nawrocki are both allies of PiS, and the president said Nawrocki was his preferred presidential candidate.
"How can journalists obtain such information?... it's quite evident," he said, responding to a question whether he can substantiate his claim.
Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak was quick to respond on the X platform that the era of "special services meddling in politics came to an end in December 2023," referring to the time when the PiS government ended its eight-year tenure.
Siemoniak went on to say the role of journalists in a democracy was "to ask questions and seek the truth." (PAP)
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