WARSAW (AP) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that his centrist political party was the target of a cyberattack, and suggested that it could have been interference from the east ahead of Poland’s presidential election next month.
Tusk announced on the X platform that his Civic Platform party’s computer system was targeted.
“Foreign interference in elections begins. Services point to eastern trace,” Tusk said.
Head of Tusk’s office Jan Grabiec told the Polish state news agency PAP that the cyberattack consisted of an attempt to take control of computers of employees of the Civic Platform office and the election staff over about a dozen hours.
Asked if Tusk was pointing the finger, Grabiec said that would be for Poland’s secret services to comment on.
Poland is weeks away from the first round of a presidential election, scheduled for May 18.
The frontrunner is the Civic Platform candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who like Tusk is a pro-European Union centrist. He has been polling around 35 per cent.
His main contenders include a conservative backed by the Law and Justice party, Karol Nawrocki, who is second in most polls at a bit over 20 per cent, and a co-leader of the far-right Confederation party, Sławomir Mentzen, who has been polling around 20 per cent.
If no candidate wins outright with at least 50 per cent of the vote on May 18, a runoff will be held on June 1.
