Poland’s presidential election “competitive” but conducted in “highly polarized” environment, finds OSCE

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The first round of Poland’s presidential election that took place on 18 May was “professional, well-organized and orderly” with “no incidents or serious procedural shortcomings”, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has found.

However, it warned that the election took place in a highly polarised political environment and media landscape that limited voters’ access to impartial information.

The OSCE’s report is based on the findings of an international team of 34 experts and long-term observers from its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and 33 parliamentarians and staff from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

The observers closely followed the implementation of election-related legislation, voter and candidate registration, campaign activities and financing, the work of election administration, the media environment as well as the resolution of election-related disputes.

In its report, published on 19 May, the OSCE concluded that the first round of voting “was competitive, offering voters a genuine choice between distinct political alternatives”. According to the observers, all levels of the election administration managed the electoral process efficiently.

But the organisation also warned that the election took place in a highly polarised environment, with biased media, a blurred line between some public figures’ official duties and campaign activities, and various candidates spreading intolerant rhetoric.

While fundamental freedoms were respected throughout the campaign, the OSCE highlighted “the use of intolerant rhetoric, particularly targeting vulnerable groups” such as migrants, the LGBT community, as well as ethnic and religious groups.

As an example, the report points to a campaign spot for Karol Nawrocki, an independent candidate supported by the opposition national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS). The video shows images of Muslim religious activity and migrants at a bus stop, while Nawrocki calls them “dangerous”.

“Poland is already flooded by immigrants from Africa and the Near East […] We have to immediately stop this,” the candidate says in the video.

The report also mentions numerous anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant comments made by politicians affiliated with Confederation (Konfederacja), as well as antisemitic and anti-LGBT comments made by the far-right candidate Grzegorz Braun.

The OSCE noted that Poland’s media landscape is highly polarised, saying that “the limited access of voters to comprehensive information needed for making a fully informed choice highlighted the need for systematic media reforms”.

The observers found that state broadcaster TVP and some private broadcasters were noticeably more critical of Nawrocki, while the conservative TV Republika’s coverage favoured Nawrocki and was negative towards Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of Poland’s main ruling party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO).

The report also mentions that the Polish authorities deployed “several mechanisms to protect election infrastructure and the campaign from external interference, disinformation, and cyberattacks, including awareness-raising and training efforts”.

In January, the Polish government issued the Election Protection Plan, a strategy aimed at protecting the integrity of the election through monitoring social media for disinformation, training NGOs, journalists and electoral committees, and bolstering cybersecurity.

The second round of Poland’s presidential election will take place on 1 June. The two candidates competing for the presidency are Trzaskowski, who received 31.36% of votes in the first round, and Nawrocki, who got 29.54%.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Agata Pyka

Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.