Financial Times says Poland should postpone the elections at the same time praising elections conducted in South Korea in April

The Financial Times website carries an opinion piece saying that Poland’s forthcoming presidential election on 10th May should be postponed, not least given the need to concentrate efforts on fighting the coronavirus. The article urges the EU to “call out the follies” of what it dubs “Poland’s Covoid-19 election” which it claims opposition parties and three qaurters of Polish society oppose. The piece has been seized on by the opposition, including Gazeta Wyborcza, as representing sensible mainstream European opinion although the author of the article, John Dalhuisen, is a former director of Amnesty International Europe and an opposition supporter. Interestingly, the FT today praised South Korea as a “beacon of democracy in Asia” for holding elections on April 15 “in stark contrast to Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines where strongman leaders are using the crisis to tighten their grips on power”. A case of double standards, perhaps?