If Poland’s main opposition candidate was leading in polls, their narrative would be completely different.
Civic Platform (PO) wouldn’t be calling for canceling the election. In fact, they would be calling anyone who proposed such an idea a threat to democracy.
They would argue that elections were held in Germany, France, South Korea, and the United States, but only PiS does not want to. Donald Tusk would reference World Health Organization experts who assure that postal voting does not kill and is actually very safe. Opposition MEPs would beg Brussels to intervene because according to the Polish constitution, the elections should be held in May.
That is how Poland would look like if PO’s candidate Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska would have 40 percent of support, instead of just 4 percent.
“Constitution, constitution!” the supporters of the opposition and Kidawa-Błońska’s voters would scream in the Polish Sejm, the European Parliament, the Western press, and on the Polish streets. They would call for respecting the law and holding the elections in May with all necessary safety precautions.
In a world where the public actually supported the opposition, PO head Borys Budka would claim that PiS is a backwater which cannot even organize elections properly, and would remind the public about elections in Bavaria and in South Korea, where millions went to the ballots. In those cases, no additional infections had been recorded, showing how safe such a system of voting could be in Poland.
He would also cite research from Wisconsin in the United States that also showed that there were no spike in coronavirus cases following in-person voting with social distancing guidelines in place.
Budka would remind Polish voters that 67 percent of Americans are in favor of postal voting and the Swiss have voted in such a way for years. Switzerland even held municipal elections during the epidemic.
“I do not believe it necessary to introduce a state of natural disaster, although we do have one now,” then Prime Minister Donald Tusk had said in 2010 during mass floods, and he would say it again today if Kidawa-Błońska was leading in the polls.
Tusk would then point out that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is breaking the law by introducing a state of emergency, and if PiS does the same, they should also be condemned. But since Orbán introduced a state of emergency, but Kaczyński did not, Orbán is criticized for doing so and Poland is criticized for not doing so. This is the twisted logic of Tusk and the opposition.
Tusk would also refer to the WHO and quote Dr. Catherine Smallwood who stated that “the risk of the virus’s transmission between people through letters and parcels is low.” Tusk would state that more than 20 American states have simplified procedures for postal voting or expanded the group of people eligible to vote in such a manner.
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