Poland will go to the polls on June 28 to elect a new president. The President of the Polish Parliament, Elzbieta Witek, announced this on Wednesday. The elections were originally scheduled to be held on May 10, but that was canceled due to the corona crisis.
The Polish government party PiS, which has a small majority in parliament (the Sejm), decided in early April that the ballot box would continue on May 10 despite all corona measures. The 30 million eligible voters should vote by post.
That decision sparked fierce protest from, among others, the opposition parties, who accused PiS of placing its own political interest on public health.
Nine Polish former presidents and former prime ministers, including Lech Walesa and Donald Tusk, argued that PiS was attempting to unconstitutively pilot the necessary legislation to enable this new form of election and boycott the elections.
The plan to vote by post only died in the Polish Senate.
Government party wants to settle elections quickly
The preferred PiS candidate, incumbent President Andrzej Duda, had a clear lead in the polls, but has recently lost ground there. PiS fears that the economic consequences of the corona crisis will accelerate that development.
The conservative party needs an ally in the presidential palace to realize its political plans. These include reforms of the Polish legal system which, according to the European Union, undermine the legal order.
At the beginning of this week, the Sejm agreed that the postponed elections could take place in a traditional manner using a combination of postal and voting.
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