“The PiS party is cheating, they are changing the rules of the game for their own benefit”, said Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the leader of the PSL party, in the Jeden na jeden TV programme, referring to the proposal for changes to electoral arrangements proposed by the ruling party.
The bill proposed by PiS to introduce changes in the Electoral Code and in the acts on communal, district and province governments provides for, among other things, restricting the service of municipality heads (wójt) and mayors (prezydent miasta, burmistrz) to two terms of office, departure from single-winner voting in elections to commune councils, and removing the possibility of holding two-day elections or voting by mail.
According to Kosiniak-Kamysz, “local communities are going to lose their influence on their little homeland”.
“A single party is gaining monopoly. The election threshold is being raised – while the statutory threshold will remain at 5 percent, in small three-member districts it will actually increase to more than 20 percent. A lot of votes will be thrown away. It may even turn out that as much as 45 percent of all votes will be wasted”, Kosiniak-Kamysz commented.
“The PiS are changing the rules of the game for their own benefit”
The PSL leader said that discussions on a joint electoral list of the opposition in local government elections should be restarted because “we know more or less what the electoral arrangements are going to look like”.
He concluded that “the treacherous electoral arrangements push us, the PSL, towards an anti-PiS coalition”. “I do not support that. The resulting alliance would be based on pragmatism and reason instead of love”, he added.
He presented several scenarios. “We could run for the elections on our own. We can build a large alliance, let’s call it a democratic alliance. We can also talk to local communities and local government committees. And there is also the Kukiz’15 party”, he listed.
Asked if the PSL could partner with the Kukiz’15, he said: “I named three scenarios. I am not deciding today, because we do not know the details yet and all the features around how the State Election Commission is going to operate.
New commissioners are coming. They will demarcate the constituencies instead of the local authorities. More powers are being stripped away”, he added.
He said that “commissioners are being dismissed in order to make the rules of the game favourable for the PiS”. “They (ed.: the PiS) had the choice: either to cheat, or to lose. They opted for cheating, and they are still going to lose anyway”, stated Kosiniak-Kamysz.
Asked if he believed the PiS was a party of con artists, he replied “as regards the electoral arrangements, they are cheating. They are changing the rules of the game for their own benefit.”
“We cannot support bills that are against the Constitution”
The PSL leader additionally commented on the “preliminary compromise” with respect to the President’s bills on the National Council of the Judiciary and Supreme Court.
In his opinion “if this solution we are all hearing about comes true, with an absolute majority electing the NCJ judges as the second step, this will mean that the NCJ will be surrendered to the PiS.” Kosiniak-Kamysz noted that the bills would still be processed by the Sejm and many things could happen.
“I cannot rule out that there is an agreement with the Presidential Palace, and in the end MP (Stanisław) Piotrowicz will come up with something that is pushed through”, he said. He added that “the PiS has already tried to outplay the President” several times.
“Why has this agreement happened? At first, they said there was no chance, that (Paweł) Mucha and Piotrowicz would not meet, and then they make an agreement on Friday and a new electoral system emerges. Maybe it was a complete suite from day one? That they agree on the courts and on the electoral arrangements? We will not see the final outcome until the parliamentary process is completed”, he said.
“We cannot support bills that are against the Constitution, good practice and morals, that do not implement the changes expected by the Poles”, he noted.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl