Polish opposition gears up to block postal ballot plan for election

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s opposition leaders urged their lawmakers to rush to Warsaw on Wednesday to reject legislation that would allow a presidential election to go ahead on May 10 by postal ballot amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Poland’s nationalist ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has ignored calls to postpone the election. Incumbent Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, is for now ahead in opinion polls but the party fears they will lose support as the coronavirus crisis drives the Polish, and wider European, economy into a deep recession.

PiS says a postal ballot is a safe way to hold the election, but opposition parties, election observers and the European Union say such a vote would lack transparency and fairness.

The upper house of parliament, the Senate, rejected the postal ballot bill on Tuesday but the Sejm lower house, where the government has a narrow majority, could overturn that verdict in a vote expected either late on Wednesday or more likely on Thursday.

If the Sejm also rejects the bill, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Michal Dworczyk, warned on Wednesday of “a very serious political crisis”, saying that Poland might have to hold a snap parliamentary election.

On the postal ballot legislation, much will hinge on how many lawmakers turn up to vote.

“Today all of our members are coming to the Sejm so we can… together oppose this bad legislation,” said Krzysztof Gawkowski, head of the Left’s parliamentary caucus.

The centrist main opposition party, the Civic Platform (PO), also told its lawmakers to be physically present during the vote in the Sejm, even though members of parliament have been able to vote virtually during the coronavirus outbreak.

“We want to be sure that in any case one of our members isn’t robbed of the ability to vote due to technical issues with the connection,” PO spokesman Jan Grabiec told Reuters.

ACCUSATIONS

Opposition parties accuse PiS of putting their narrow political interests ahead of public health concerns and the integrity of the democratic process. They want the government to declare a state of emergency or of natural disaster, which would then allow it legally to delay the vote till later this year.

A junior partner in the ruling coalition, Accord, has signalled it might side with the opposition in the vote on the postal ballot legislation, though its lawmakers are split.

Election officials say Poland is not technically ready to hold a traditional election with polling stations on Sunday if lawmakers reject the legislation.

The PiS-nominated speaker of the Sejm, Elzbieta Witek, said on Tuesday she would ask the Constitutional Tribunal whether she could postpone the election till May 23 at the latest, the ruling party’s preferred option if the postal ballot is blocked.

Critics say the Tribunal cannot rule on the issue.

Although parliament holds most power in Poland, PiS needs the support of the president to push through more reforms of the judiciary that the EU has said undermine democratic norms.

Commenting on how the coronavirus lockdown might harm the economy, and with it support for the government’s agenda and its preferred presidential candidate, a lawmaker from a party allied with PiS, Tadeusz Cymanski, told Reuters: “In the autumn … people will be more tired. They might be irritated.

“The results of such a crisis are most felt after some time,” he said.

As of Wednesday, the new coronavirus had infected 14,647 people and killed 723 in Poland.