Poland is holding an election Sunday that many view as its most important one since the 1989 vote that toppled communism.
Workers hoisting campaign banner of ruling Law and Justice leader and Poland's most powerful politician, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is running in crucial parliamentary election, in Sandomierz, Poland, on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. At stake in Sunday's vote are the health of the nation's democracy, strained under the ruling conservative Law and Justice party, and the foreign alliances of a country on NATO's eastern flank that has been a crucial ally.
The election “will decide the future of Poland as a country of liberal democracy, a system that has been a guarantor of Polish success for the last three decades," the editor of the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, Boguslaw Chrabota, wrote in a Friday editorial. Citizens who want a more liberal Poland also mobilized in their own fashion. Some interviewed in recent days by The Associated Press became very emotional or fought back tears as they described what they regard as corruption, democratic backsliding, propaganda and bitter divisions in Polish society since Law and Justice came to power in 2015.
The polls show that three opposition groups — Civic Coalition, Third Way and New Left — could together get a majority of seats in Parliament. The largest is the centrist Civil Coalition dominated byTusk has vowed to restore the rule of law and to rebuild ties with the EU that became severely strained under Law and Justice. The EU is withholding billions of euros in COVID-19 pandemic recovery funds from Warsaw, citing rule of law violations.
The main reason for the imbalance is Law and Justice’s control of taxpayer-funded state media, which it uses to constantly bash opponents, Kucharczyk argued. But other factors could play a role in the election's outcome, including the party’s political control over the electoral administration and the chamber of the Supreme Court that will validate the election.
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