The controversial presidential election in Poland this Sunday has been canceled. The ruling party announced. A new date has therefore not yet been set.
The opposition had asked for the election to be postponed due to the corona crisis and restrictions on public life, but the national conservative governing party PiS was against it. The PiS candidate and incumbent Andrzej Duda led in all surveys. Presidential candidate Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska had sharply criticized the plans. If the election actually took place, it would be “a coup d’état not only against our democracy, but also against the life and health of the Poles,” Kidawa-Blonska said told the newspaper “Fact”.
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Former EU Council President Donald Tusk had also criticized the government’s plans. “The situation that the government has prepared for May 10 has nothing to do with elections,” Tusk said in a Twitter video.
The government camp also split
The PiS had still tried to save the date by changing the right to vote by voting as a pure postal vote. However, the opposition-dominated Senate, the second chamber of parliament, had rejected a corresponding bill. The first chamber is scheduled to vote on Thursday. Here the PiS has the majority and could overrule the Senate’s rejection.
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However, the government camp was split. A group of MPs around former Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin did not want to support this proposal. Obviously, Gowin and Kaczynski have now managed to find a compromise. The Gowin group “Porozumenie” within the PiS now wants to approve the postal vote law. The condition is that the election will not take place on May 10th. “When May 10 is over and the Supreme Court declares the election invalid, the President of Parliament will announce a new election date at the earliest possible date,” said the joint statement by Kaczynski and Gowin.
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