The Polish Senate continues debates on the all-postal elections bill. It is still unclear how the Agreement party, led by former vice Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin will vote on the bill. There are, however, reasons to believe that there has been much disagreement in the Agreement party.
Much points to the fact, that the presidential elections will not take place on the 10th of May after all. They can, however, take place on two more dates according to the constitution – May 17th or May 23rd, provided the Agreement party led by Jarosław Gowin votes for the all-postal form of the elections – which is not entirely certain.
“What we’re witnessing now are personal opinions of individual MPs. I believe that our MPs will be loyal to the government we are co-creating. It will be a very important vote”, stated Adam Bielan, the spokesman for the presidential campaign of Andrzej Duda.
Today, the Senate began debating on the all-postal elections bill. Unofficially, it is said that the higher chamber of parliament will vote to reject the bill in its entirety. The Senate has until Wednesday to decide on the matter. If that doesn’t happen, the bill can be directly given to the president to sign.
The Speaker of the Senate, Tomasz Grodzki made it clear that there is no love for the bill in the higher chamber of parliament:
“Joint commissions recommend to reject the all-postal elections bill in its entirety. I would also like to say that the second point of today’s session will be a resolution recommending the introduction of a state of natural disaster. The Senators had enough of a situation where we have all the signs of a state of natural disaster but it hasn’t been officially introduced”.
Some politicians of the Agreement party appealed to their colleagues today to support the bill.
“The most important thing is to save the United Right. That is why, we are appealing to the MPs of the Agreement party, but also to all the MPs, to support the all-postal elections bill”, commented Włodzimierz Tomaszewski.
The spokeswoman for the Agreement responded to the appeal on Twitter:
“The stance presented by MP Włodzimierz Tomaszewski is only his personal opinion. The official standpoint of the Agreement party is represented by its leader, Jarosław Gowin”.
If, in the end, it will be impossible to conduct the elections in May, the other potential date will be in August. Nonetheless, no matter if the Senate rejects the bill or proposes amendments, a definite majority of votes in the Sejm is required for it to be adopted. The Law and Justice club consists of 235 MPs, including 18 MPs of the Agreement party. This means that the ruling party led by Jarosław Kaczyński requires at least 15 members of the Agreement on its side. It is rumoured that four of them might be against the bill. According to the timetable of the Sejm proceedings, the MPs are to be voting on the bill on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.