The Guardian view on Poland's presidential election: call it off
One of the most immediate and unavoidable consequences of the coronavirus pandemic was that “politics as usual” quickly ground to a shuddering halt. In Britain, mayoral and council elections due to be held this week were postponed for a year.
A democratic hiatus of this kind is never to be welcomed. But delaying an election in order to conduct it properly is far preferable to the current state of affairs in Poland. This Sunday, as Poles tentatively emerge from two months of lockdown and continue to physically distance, an electorate ofmore than 30 million people is due to elect a new president by postal vote – the first such poll in the nation’s history. The date of the election was fixed in pre-coronavirus times. By insisting that it goes ahead, the rightwing Law and Justiceled government has taken the maxim “never let a crisis go to waste” to a new level.
The decision to hold an improvised postal election is being contested by all the opposition parties. Key allies in Law and Justice’s own ruling coalition also oppose the move; the deputy prime minister, Jarosław Gowin, resigned in protest last month, arguing that the country should be focused on battling coronavirus and rebuilding the economy. The other objections are numerous. There are enormous practical difficulties to organising an unprecedented ballot in such a short space of time and widespread concerns over possible fraud. Since ordinary campaigning on the streets has been impossible for two months, there are also issues of political balance, given the pro-government affiliations of Polish broadcast media.
The simplest explanation for the government’s determination to press ahead regardless is naked opportunism. Since taking power in 2015, Law and
Justice has acquired a well-deserved reputation for playing fast and loose with democratic norms, particularly in relation to the judiciary and media. In this instance, it appears the party has calculated that in times of national crisis, populations tend to rally round the government. In April, it rushed a bill through parliament to allow a postal ballot poll, ignoring a legal prohibition on rule changes less than six months from an election. From then on, the political playing field has been relentlessly skewed in favour of the government’s preferred candidate, Andrzej Duda, who is seeking a second presidential term. Mr Duda has enjoyed a high-profile role in the government’s strategy to combat Covid-19, receiving plaudits from governmentfriendly media. The candidate for Civic Platform, Poland’s main opposition party, has endorsed a mass boycott of the election while, confusingly, staying in the race. Unsurprisingly, given that backdrop, polls suggest that Mr Duda is set to win by a landslide.
With the country split over the vote, and Sunday’s election in danger of descending into farce, it is still possible that Poland’s parliament will overturn the earlier decision to allow it to take place. On legal, logistical and ethical grounds that would be the right course of action.
A pandemic is not the appropriate context for an experiment in postal voting that has no credibility among large swathes of the electorate. In the interests of democracy, this election should be postponed.