PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images Polish leader’s alleged skyscraper plan roils Warsaw A newspaper says Law and Justice chief Jarosław Kaczyński was recorded discussing a massive real estate investment.

WARSAW — A Polish newspaper on Tuesday published what it said was a recording of Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country's de facto ruler, discussing a €300 million project to develop skyscrapers in central Warsaw.

The recording, published by Gazeta Wyborcza, is a potential blow against Kaczyński's image as an ascetic and a politician who spent most of life without a bank account and who is driven by politics and not business. It also comes as PiS is dealing with a growing number of corruption scandals.

The recording was made on July 27, 2018. In it, one of Kaczyński's relatives, Grzegorz Tomaszewski, visits the PiS leader's office with Austrian businessman Gerald Birgefellner, also a member of the Kaczyński clan, to complain about not being paid for his 14 months of work on the skyscraper project.

The land for the potential development is owned by a company called Srebrna, closely tied to Law and Justice and run by Kaczyński's driver and an old family friend. The financing was to come from Bank Pekao SA, a recently nationalized bank.

In the recording, a voice identified by the newspaper as Kaczyński explains that the project had to be stopped because of possible criticism from the media and the opposition. The voice identified as Kaczyński says that should it be revealed that "the party is building a skyscraper … it would be indefensible. It is politics."

"Jarosław Kaczyński is acting absolutely honestly" — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki

The voice then complains that Warsaw city hall, controlled by the opposition Civic Platform party, keeps refusing to issue a building permit and tells Birgefellner: "If we don't win elections, we won't build a skyscraper in Warsaw." The PiS candidate for Warsaw mayor was trounced in October's local election, and the project has not been revived since.

The voice identified as Kaczyński goes on to tell Birgefellner that he won't be paid for his work — a sum the paper calculated as €9 million — and that he can sue if he doesn't agree. Birgefellner's lawyers have filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office.

"Our client was cheated," Jacek Dubois, Birgefellner's lawyer, told reporters, adding, "Kaczyński misled our client. Family relations led to trust-based activities, and when it came to settlement, this trust was broken.”

The recordings were passed on to Roman Giertych, a prominent lawyer who once led a political party allied with Law and Justice but who has since become one of Kaczyński's most public enemies. He is now working for Birgefellner.

The government stressed that the recording doesn't reveal anything improper.

"Jarosław Kaczyński is acting absolutely honestly," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters, adding that his party leader "personifies honesty and the battle against corruption."

It's unclear if the recording will have a big political impact. However, Law and Justice has been shaken by a growing number of corruption problems — six former officials were arrested on Monday. The party has also tried to distance itself from the fiery language used by some of its partisans after the murder earlier this month of Gdańsk Mayor Paweł Adamowicz — the subject of frequent criticism on state television.

An opinion poll by the Ibris organization released Monday showed PiS and its allies with 35 percent support‚ down from 39 percent earlier this month. Civic Platform had 29 percent, and the survey showed that a broad anti-PiS coalition would win control of parliament if elections were held now. National elections take place this fall.

Getting it on tape

Secret recordings have played an important role in Polish politics.

In 2002, Gazeta Wyborcza taped a bribery proposal, allegedly made in the name of the then ruling post-communist Democratic Left Alliance. The resulting scandal was crucial in that party's 2005 electoral defeat.

A video recording of a PiS official making a political proposal to opposition MPs helped lead to that party's demise in 2007 elections.

In 2014, when current European Council President Donald Tusk was Poland's prime minister, several Cabinet officials were secretly recorded in two Warsaw restaurants. Their vulgar language and insider comments helped tarnish Civic Platform's reputation and was a major factor in PiS's 2015 electoral victory.

In November, Gazeta Wyborcza published a recording of the head of Poland's financial market watchdog, Marek Chrzanowski, meeting with the owner of a troubled bank. The banker accused Chrzanowski of soliciting a bribe in return for lenient treatment, and Chrzanowski was arrested on corruption charges.