The Law and Justice Party (PiS) intend to revise the electoral regulations. They want to do this already in autumn, to hold the next election under the new rules. This has been announced by the Head of the PiS Parliamentary Club and by Ryszard Terlecki, the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm.
Terlecki didn't go into any details. Asked what changes he had on his mind, he only said they were going to be ‘thorough’. The subject of changes to the electoral regulations came into focus a few months ago, when Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS chairman, said in January that the changes could involve, among other things, restricting the service of municipality heads and mayors to two terms of office. Such restrictions, according to the original proposal, would be retroactive. It means that those who have already served two or more terms of office would not be allowed to run for the next election. Having faced protests, PiS revised its approach later on, stating that the two terms of office would be counted starting from the next elections, so there would be no retroactivity. The subject of proofing the electoral system in local elections was also raised a number of times. This would be based on solutions similar to those already existing in arrangements for other types of elections. “I believe that PiS is aware that it is going to be really hard for them to win the local elections in a number of Polish towns and cities, and therefore they would like to see the electoral regulations revised”, commented Paweł Rabiej, candidate of the Nowoczesna party for the office of the Mayor of Warsaw. “What we fear most, and will protest against, is a single round of elections and the exclusion of community or citizens’ committees from the elections, which means favoring political parties. If things go this way, firstly we should expect the opposition to protest, as we will surely not allow this to happen, and secondly, the opposition parties would face the need to closely cooperate and think about the possible scenario of what could happen after this solution is put in place”, he added.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl