Poland will hold 2020 presidential elections on June 28, announced Speaker of the Sejm Elżbieta Witek, who said that she has received confirmation about the election calendar from the National Electoral Commission (PKW).
Witek stressed that the election campaign will begin immediately and that she wants it to be a fair race.
The potential second round of elections, which will take place if one candidate does not meet the 50-percent threshold in the first round, will take place after two weeks on July 12.
According to the election calendar approved by the PKW, the deadline to register election committees will pass on June 5 and candidates must be registered by June 10.
The voting in the 2020 elections will be in a mixed form, including both in-person polling stations and postal voting.
Correspondence voters will have until June 26 to insert their voting cards into mailboxes. Regular voting at polling stations will take place between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on June 28. Return envelopes with voting cards of correspondence voters will also be distributed to the appropriate election commissions by the Polish Post on June 28.
Postponed voting
Witek noted that she had announced the previous deadline as May 10, but the coronavirus pandemic changed the situation and the election campaign moved to social media.
“The May 10 elections should have taken place, as we were prepared to conduct them,” she emphasized.
Witek pointed out that every proposal concerning organizing the elections had been shot down by the opposition. She added that the opposition showed that it is only looking to create conflicts and wants to distort reality.
President Duda’s lead narrows
According to the latest polling, President Andrzej Duda’s lead has fallen as opposition voters begin to congregate around Rafał Trzaskowski, the new candidate of the main opposition Civic Platform party.
Duda is still well ahead but the gap between him and Trzaskowski has narrowed significantly.
Duda, standing with support of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS), has 40 percent support, down from 41 percent he secured in the last poll. Trzaskowski enjoys the support of 27 percent of those surveyed, an increase of six points on the last poll. The independent celebrity candidate Szymon Hołownia’s support is holding up on 17 percent, down just one point from the last survey.
