Recall that on may 10, in Poland must pass the presidential election. If the epidemic of the coronavirus Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared a state of emergency, the vote could be postponed for a month, and with the support of the Parliament for three months. This is what he calls the opposition.
But polls show that if elections were held during a pandemic coronavirus, is likely to win the current head of state Andrzej Duda. Therefore, the ruling party “law and justice” doesn’t want to carry the vote to a later date. The lower house of Parliament in which the party majority, already passed several amendments to existing legislation allowing to hold elections on may 10, but by mail. The only alternative option currently being considered in Poland is the extension of the presidential term Duda for two years without the right of re-election. At the end of last week, the head of the Ministry of health Lucas Shumovsky, is a politician of the ruling party, and therefore putting its interests above the interests of actually health, announced its recommendations. According to him, the epidemic in one form or another will continue for another year and a half. So safe elections in the traditional form can be made only in two years. “If political parties will not agree to such a scenario, the only safe form of elections there will be elections in the mail,” he said.
This statement by the Minister of health have prepared the ground for President signed a package of documents, one of which abolishes some of the powers of the Polish electoral Commission. Now she will not be able to develop a model form for voting or to print these forms, or to prepare information about electoral districts. Theoretically, all this will have to do a Polish post, but the relevant amendment to the Constitution has not yet received the approval of the upper house – the Senate. And since there the majority of seats in opposition, the experts have no doubt that with a vote of her senators will wait until the beginning of may is the maximum possible. Thus, it happened that three weeks before the presidential election in Poland there is no one to take it. Moreover, it is possible that in may the ruling party will not gain enough votes, and the amendment on the election by mail will not work. This will lead the country into legal chaos.
However, even if the authorities will succeed in our plans, the legitimacy of the outcome of these remote elections is already causing doubts among jurists and serious Polish politicians. For example, the mayor of Warsaw, rafał Trzaskowski in an interview with Rzeczpospolita accused the ruling party of irresponsibility: “no One knows how to ensure the safety of members of the election Commission during the epidemicEkaterinburg Museum of fine arts. No one knows how to deliver ballots to people who do not live at the place of residence, and those who are quarantined. No one knows how to organize elections by mail outside the borders of the country. I have a feeling that the ruling party has lost the sense of reality. And worst of all, they know that the king is naked, but afraid to say.”
