Open AccessIn the shadow of plagues:2020 presidential elections in Poland
Author(s) -
Piotr Sula,
Małgorzata Madej,
Kamil Błaszczyński
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
przegląd politologiczny
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2956-5081
pISSN - 1426-8876
DOI - 10.14746/pp.2021.26.2.3
Subject(s) - ballot , presidential system , cohabitation , shadow (psychology) , political science , plague (disease) , turnout , appeal , politics , political economy , presidential election , covid-19 , law , sociology , history , voting , psychology , medicine , disease , archaeology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , psychotherapist
Presidential elections in Poland have always drawn more voters to the ballot box than parliamentary ones. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the turnout in the 2020 presidential elections was the second-highest since 1989. The glib answer might be that voters were simply availing themselves of the opportunity to leave the house, however briefly, since COVID-19 measures had largely confined people to their homes for most of the year. More likely, albeit paradoxically, heightened voter interest was triggered by political autocratisation, the other plague that Poles have been struggling with, in this case since 2015. The election was won by the incumbent, Andrzej Duda, whose advantage was credited to his appeal among less-educated and older people living in rural areas. In the end, the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had backed Duda’s campaign, managed to avoid cohabitation-related inconvenience for the second time.