Polish presidential election quagmire, as coronavirus claims more lives
22:46
The Polish health ministry reported 268 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 – the disease caused by the coronavirus – and another 10 fatalities on Sunday. To date, at least 4,102 people have been infected in Poland and 94 have died.
However, those numbers have done little to dissuade the MPs of the country’s governing right-wing nationalist and populist caucus – United Right (ZP) – from infighting over the presidential election date. Poles are set to go to the polls for the first round of the presidential elections on May 10. Law and Justice (PiS) party lead the informal conservative political alliance, ZP, that won 235 seats in total out of 460 in 2019 parliamentary elections. United Poland (SP) and Agreement parties together with PiS form ZP.
Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s de facto leader and head of PiS, said on Friday that presidential elections should be held on May 10 and that current conditions do not call for the state of emergency to be imposed.
However, Jarosław Gowin, deputy prime minister and head of Agreement, has said that presidential elections should be conducted on a date that is safe from the point of view of the health and life of Poles. He has also said that “elections are a tertiary problem”.
PiS submitted a bill to the lower house (Sejm) of the Polish parliament, which assumes that the next presidential election would take place only in the form of correspondence voting. Initially, as part of an amendment to the special law on the fight against coronavirus, PiS submitted amendments to the Electoral Code, which expanded the possibility of voting by correspondence, including for voters over 60 and in quarantine. Later, a separate bill was submitted, according to which all citizens would have the opportunity to vote by correspondence in the presidential election. Then PiS submitted a self-amendment, according to which these elections would be conducted only in the form of correspondence.
On April 6, Sejm will decide further.
