On Sunday elections in Poland: unfair from the very beginning
anonymous Polish person | 20.10.2007 15:54 | World
Elections start tommorow, but they are non-representative and undemocratic from the very beggining. Is it a democracy, or just a fake, made to kick-off all the competitors? To these elections only 7 nationwide lists were admitted!
There is no democratic elections in Poland because:
1. After taking the power from the communists in 1989, the post-solidarity political organisations "kicked-off" the ladder for other, newer parties. They introduced governmental susbsidies - millions of zlotiys for those parties that got over 3 % hurdle in the elections, and all smaller parties got 0 zlotys. So the budget for elections of let us say, ruling party, was 10 thousand times the budget of some newly established party
2. Only 4-5 parties - all of them conservative or postcommunist, appear regularly in media, all other parties do not appear nearly at all in the media. The media sometimes say they lack voters, but how can the voters know about thir presence if the media keep them out of their knowledge?
3. If You stand for elections, there is no such thing as free electoral address. You have to somehow manage to get Your message to the voters Yourself. A proper typical campaign in one consituency costs 100 000 PLN, only very rich can afford it. Normal person cannot stand for the elections, her message wont go across to the voters. Normally a party registred for elections has an allowance of 10 minutes of public radio and public local TV time. That is all.
You want to stand for elections in Poland, then just forget it. No chances whatsoever, You want even manage to get to every voter, even if such cost is 0,10 PLN per person then it costs 100 000 PLN in one constituency. And such is the average cost that politicians spend, such as the recently revealed Sawicka affair, that decided to take a bribe of 100 thousand PLN to finance her campaign.
I know only two people who will vote for the rulling Catholic party out of a thousand of my friends and mates. I do not see around me such a backing as it is presented in the media. I asked once people using the ski-lift in Zakopane, if they were voting for PiS. No one confirmed, and I asked dozens of people. I do not believe the government, who uses blackmail to gain control over media and causes independent journalists to be kicked off. We are now Russia-like "democracy" and not a proper democratic country.
Cheers,
anonymous Polish citizen
1. After taking the power from the communists in 1989, the post-solidarity political organisations "kicked-off" the ladder for other, newer parties. They introduced governmental susbsidies - millions of zlotiys for those parties that got over 3 % hurdle in the elections, and all smaller parties got 0 zlotys. So the budget for elections of let us say, ruling party, was 10 thousand times the budget of some newly established party
2. Only 4-5 parties - all of them conservative or postcommunist, appear regularly in media, all other parties do not appear nearly at all in the media. The media sometimes say they lack voters, but how can the voters know about thir presence if the media keep them out of their knowledge?
3. If You stand for elections, there is no such thing as free electoral address. You have to somehow manage to get Your message to the voters Yourself. A proper typical campaign in one consituency costs 100 000 PLN, only very rich can afford it. Normal person cannot stand for the elections, her message wont go across to the voters. Normally a party registred for elections has an allowance of 10 minutes of public radio and public local TV time. That is all.
You want to stand for elections in Poland, then just forget it. No chances whatsoever, You want even manage to get to every voter, even if such cost is 0,10 PLN per person then it costs 100 000 PLN in one constituency. And such is the average cost that politicians spend, such as the recently revealed Sawicka affair, that decided to take a bribe of 100 thousand PLN to finance her campaign.
I know only two people who will vote for the rulling Catholic party out of a thousand of my friends and mates. I do not see around me such a backing as it is presented in the media. I asked once people using the ski-lift in Zakopane, if they were voting for PiS. No one confirmed, and I asked dozens of people. I do not believe the government, who uses blackmail to gain control over media and causes independent journalists to be kicked off. We are now Russia-like "democracy" and not a proper democratic country.
Cheers,
anonymous Polish citizen
anonymous Polish person
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