Sławomir Mentzen Could Lose His Party Name to a Rival Registration

Sławomir Mentzen’s party could lose the name New Hope to an unrelated political group after three people applied to register it in Poland. The move adds another complication to the formal troubles facing the party led by the Confederation politician.

The better-known New Hope began as the Coalition for the Renewal of the Republic, Freedom and Hope, later taking the name KORWiN. Janusz Korwin-Mikke founded it, and Mentzen replaced him as leader in 2022. The party then adopted the name New Hope and became, alongside the National Movement, one of the main components of Confederation. It currently has eight members of parliament.

The party’s legal problems began after a missed deadline for submitting its 2024 financial report. The deadline fell on March 31, 2025. Under Poland’s political parties law, missing it can lead to removal from the party register. Party representatives say they filed the report on the final day, but the National Electoral Commission disputes that account and sought the party’s deregistration.

The Warsaw District Court removed New Hope from the register in November last year, but the decision has not become final because the party appealed. Expecting defeat in the second instance as well, Mentzen’s activists began preparing a fallback. They applied in January to register a group called The Empire Strikes Back.

The name was an inside joke based on the subtitles of the first two films in George Lucas’s Star Wars saga. The activists said the name was temporary and that the group would ultimately become New Hope. In February, New Hope’s structures were transferred to The Empire Strikes Back. New Hope then changed its own name to Income Tax, another political stunt. The new application for New Hope threatens to complicate that plan.