63 percent of Poles think that Foreign Affairs Minister Zbigniew Rau should resign from office over the recent visa scandal - according to the latest Kantar poll carried out for "Fakty" TVN and TVN24. The opposite opinion was expressed by 26 percent of those surveyed.
In the latest poll conducted by Kantar for "Fakty" TVN and TVN24, the respondents were asked the following question: "Should Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau resign from office over the visa scandal?".
63 percent of those asked submitted affirmative answers, while 26 percent said "no".
11 percent of respondents found it "hard to say".
The telephone survey was carried out by Kantar on October 2-4 on a nationwide, representative sample of 1,500 people aged 18+.
Visa scandal
The scandal erupted just as the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party is seeking to secure a third term in power in parliamentary elections on Oct. 15, with a tougher stance on illegal immigration an important theme of its campaign.
Poland's National Public Prosecutor's Office and the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau have launched separate inquiries into the matter.
Poland's foreign ministry said on Sept.15 it had fired the head of its legal service and canceled all its contracts for outsourcing visa applications.
A day earlier, seven people were charged over the alleged irregularities in granting work visas and two weeks after anticorruption officers looking in to the scandal searched the foreign ministry and a deputy foreign minister was also dismissed.
The Polish opposition speak of government corruption and claim Poland issued hundreds of thousands dubious documents.
Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk called the case "Poland's biggest scandal of the 21st century".
PiS has accused the opposition of exaggerating the extent of the issue and suggested some of the problems date back to the opposition's time in power.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Fakty TVN, Reuters