Poland’s president Andrzej Duda said on Saturday that he would veto part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s budget in an escalation of the conflict between the country’s rival political parties over media regulation.

Duda said he would seek to block Tusk’s planned overhaul of Poland’s public broadcaster TVP, adding that he could not allow the draft budget for 2024 to include a “blatant violation of the constitution and the principles of a democratic state of law”.

On the campaign trail, Tusk — who took office last week — pledged to shut down the public media company because he said it was spreading propaganda for the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party as well as lies about him, although he has also recently spoken about “healing” public media rather than dismantling it.