The Supreme Control Chamber of Poland conducted an investigation into the country’s preparations for the May 10, 2020, presidential election by postal vote due to the pandemic, which subsequently took place in June on a mixed basis, and suspected Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers of committing a crime. This was announced on Tuesday at a press conference by the head of the chamber Marian Banas.
“In connection with the results of the audit concerning the preparation and organization of the Polish presidential elections scheduled for May 10, 2020, using mail voting, I would like to inform you that today the Supreme Control Chamber, taking into account the seriousness of the violations revealed during the inspections, sends a notification to the prosecutor’s office about the suspicion of committing a crime by the head of the Council of Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki, the head of the Office of the head of the Polish government Michal Dvorczyk, the Minister for Control of State Assets Jacek Sasin and the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Mariusz Kaminski”, — he said.
According to the Chamber, the head of government made decisions on postal voting and the resulting printing of the relevant ballots, without having legal grounds for this. The ministers are accused of not exercising the right to challenge the Prime Minister’s decisions and implementing them.
Commenting to journalists on these charges, Prime Minister Moravetsky said that he considers his actions, as well as the actions of his ministers, to be correct. “They behaved as it was necessary, behaved so that it was possible to hold elections,” he added.
The presidential election was scheduled to take place in Poland on May 10, 2020. Then, at the height of the pandemic, the authorities tried to pass a law on conducting remote voting by mail throughout the country. Doubts about the correctness of making such a decision a few weeks before the elections were expressed not only by the opposition and international organizations, which are afraid of fraud but even by members of the ruling coalition in Poland, which was threatened with collapse because of this.
As a result of the acute political confrontation and the lost time, it was not possible to organize the vote within the established time limit. The Speaker of the Seimas (the lower house of parliament) called new elections for June 28, and the parliamentarians adopted a compromise law on holding voting on a mixed principle: in a classic way, that is, with the organization of polling stations, and by mail-for those in quarantine and everyone who wants to after submitting a corresponding application.
