The Polish government wants to pose questions to voters during the October 15 parliamentary election that will include whether Poland should take in "thousands of illegal immigrants", a move rivals say aims to swing the vote by misleading voters about opposition policies. According to the National Electoral Commission, participation in the referendum is entirely up to each voter, just like when it comes to taking part in the election.
The ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party said it had finalised four questions for what says is a referendum to coincide with the vote, covering whether to allow in more migrants, remove a border barrier with Belarus, sell more state assets and raise the pension age.
The centrist Civic Platform (PO), the main opposition party which is running neck and neck with PiS according to some polls, says the questions are designed to sway voters by distorting the opposition's stance on these sensitive issues.
The PiS-dominated parliament is expected to approve the government's plan later this week.
PiS, seeking a third term in power, has put opposition to migration at the centre of its campaign and says the opposition would hurt the economy by selling state assets and endanger security amid Russia's war in Ukraine.
"When we propose a question so that we don't sell out Poland's wealth, the opposition gets furious. When we propose a question so that there is no compulsion to work until the age of 67, they are irritated," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.
"It's chutzpah, not a referendum"
On migration, the proposed question asks whether Poles would support the "admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in line with the compulsory relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy."
The European Union agreed a deal in June under which each EU member would be responsible for a set number of migrants, mainly arriving in Europe from Africa and the Middle East, but it would not necessarily have to take them in. The PiS took a tough line in those talks against any move to force it to accept migrants.
Poland has taken in huge numbers of people fleeing Ukraine.
The PO says it does not have an open-door migrant policy and says none of the questions represent their policies.
"It's chutzpah, not a referendum. They arrange a spectacle with the announcement of the questions, attack PO in each of them and suggest what answer to pick," PO lawmaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Lawmakers from smaller leftist parties have called for a boycott of the referendum if, as expected, it is approved by parliament.
"That's not the way to hold a referendum"
PiS has also put Russia's war in Ukraine at the centre of its campaign, saying it is the best guarantor of Poland's security against any military threats and best defender against migration via Belarus, Russia's ally which also borders Poland.
Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said on Monday that Poles would be able to decide "whether the border will continue to be protected", as he announced the final question in a post on X.
Among the critics of the planned referendum is Wojciech Hermeliński, a retired Constitutional Tribunal judge and former chairman of the National Electoral Commission (PKW). In his view, the ruling PiS party "wants to turn the referendum into a kind of plebiscite on whether you would prefer to be beautiful and rich rather than poor and ugly".
"That's not the way to hold a referendum. In a referendum you put forward certain problem, but not in the way whether you support this or that policy, whether you are in favour of government policy of accepting immigrants, or you are against such policy," he added.
Do I have to participate in the referendum?
No one eligible to vote in elections cannot be forced to cast their vote. This means that all voters decide on their own whether ot not they want take part in a vote and which vote to participate in.
According to the National Electoral Commission, "in case of a referendum carried out on the same day as the election to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and to the Senate of the Republic of Poland, a voter can decide on their own, entirely at one's own discretion, on participation in, e.g.
- only in the election to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and to the Senate of the Republic of Poland (without participating in the referendum);
- to participate only in the referendum (without taking part in the election to the Sejm and the Senate);
- only in the election to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (without taking part in the election to the Senate and in the referendum);
- etc.".
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, tvn24.pl, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: roibu/Shutterstock