Authors: Kinga Margas (Alliance4Europe), Saman Nazari (Alliance4Europe), ISD Researcher, Aleksandra Wójtowicz, Dr. Virginie Andre (Debunk.org), Sophie Sacilotto (Debunk.org), Malak Altaeb (Debunk.org).
Contributors: Givi Gigitashvili (DFRLab), Aleksy Szymkiewicz (Demagog Association), Dominik Uhlig (Gazeta Wyborcza), NASK, Mateusz Zadroga (Fakenews.pl), Maria Giovanna Sessa (EU DisinfoLab), Raquel Miguel Serrano (EU DisinfoLab), Alexandre Alaphilippe (EU DisinfoLab).
The Polish Presidential Elections in May 2025 are a critical democratic event. However, the current geopolitical climate, coupled with the increasing sophistication of FIMI tactics, threatens these elections’ fairness and integrity.. This report assesses the risks posed by Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) to the integrity of the upcoming Polish Presidential Elections in May 2025. This assessment identifies key threats, vulnerabilities, and potential consequences based on lessons learned from the 2023 parliamentary elections and current geopolitical tensions. Proactive measures and continued vigilance are crucial to mitigate these risks and safeguard the democratic process.
About the Project:
This risk assessment report, ahead of the 2025 Polish Presidential Elections, was developed through the project FIMI Defenders for Election Integrity. This project consortium brings together FIMI ISAC members with the unparalleled expertise of 10 organisations to develop a multi-stakeholder FIMI framework for elections to effectively monitor, respond to and counter FIMI threats before and during elections, while at the same time strengthening FIMI defender communities and democratic institutions
About the FIMI-ISAC:
The FIMI-ISAC (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Information Sharing and Analysis Center) is a group of like-minded organisations that protect democratic societies, institutions, and the critical information infrastructures of democracy from external manipulation and harm. Through collaboration, the FIMI-ISAC enables its members to detect, analyse, and counter FIMI more rapidly and effectively while upholding the fundamental value of freedom of expression. The FIMI-ISAC does not act independently to counter FIMI. Instead, enhancing collaboration empowers its members to do so more effectively.
About the Counter Disinformation Network:
This report and project were facilitated through the Counter Disinformation Network (CDN). The CDN is convened by Alliance4Europe and functions as a collaboration and crisis response platform, knowledge valorisation resource, and expert network, bringing together 51 organisations and around 300 practitioners from OSINT, journalism, fact-checking and academia from 20 countries. The network has been used to coordinate projects on 4 elections, and has produced 60 incident alerts highlighting detected cases of disinformation to authorities, researchers and civil society.