POLAND - AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ON JUNE 28


JUNE 9:

Today I want to write about the coming presidential elections in POLAND. They will take place on Sunday, June 28. Originally, they should have happened on May 10. But due to the corona crisis it was not possible to organize them in the usual way. The government tried to organise them only with postal votes. Why?  Because it probably thought that it would be easier to have its own candidate, the present president, Andrzej Duda, re-elected, if the elections took place before all the negative effects, not least economically, from the corona crisis would become clear to the population. But the opposition and the courts resisted this plan, and the government had at the end against its will to postpone the vote.

It will as already mentioned now take place on June 28 – and organized in the usual way. The present president is elected until August 6.

In the meantime the Polish opposition has agreed on a joint candidate. It is the young and charismatic mayor of Warsaw, RAFAL TRZASKOWSKI. See photo. He is 48 years and trained as a political scientist. He is the candidate for the main opposition party, Civic Forum. He wants a different policy on several areas than the present government. He is very pro-European. And he has as mayor also supported the movement of homosexuals – a topic which is quite controversial in the often very conservative and catholic Poland.

The role of the Polish president is limited. He is the head of state and has as such a number of ceremonial tasks.  One important role is that he has the last word on the nomination of judges – a very important issue right now, as the government against the EU treaties etc. tries to influence the Polish judges in many different ways.

The present president, Duda, is not very much known outside Poland. Perhaps he is best know for the incident, which happened, when president Trump visited Poland.  When president Duda’s wife was about to say hello to the American guests she decided to bypass Trump and his hand ready to say hello – and she went directly to Melania Trump to greet her first.  Have a look:  https://youtu.be/RlGdOlvBsCo      

It will be very interesting to see, if the opposition will succeed in getting Trzaskowski elected. The Polish voters are politically very much split between the very conservative rural districts and the more liberal and open cities. So even if the function as president is not of huge importance in the country the election will have a very important symbolic value for everybody.

Poland has a size of 312.600 sq.km, about 10% smaller than Germany. And it has 38 mio. inhabitants.

If you want to follow news about Poland in English you may either do it on EURONEWS  (www.euronews.com )   or on the English programmes of Radio Poland:

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