Three quarters of Poles want to keep “election silence” law banning campaigning on voting weekend

A large majority of people in Poland want to keep the country’s law that makes it illegal to express support for candidates, or even publish opinion polls, on the weekend when an election is taking place.

Last weekend, as Poles voted in the first round of presidential elections, saw some high-profile violations of so-called “election silence”, including by a deputy justice minister. Even the prime minister, Donald Tusk, was accused by some critics of ignoring the ban on campaigning.

A new poll by SW Research for Rzeczpospolita, a leading daily newspaper, found that 76.2% of Poles are in favour of maintaining election silence. Only 12.8% want to scrap it, while 11.1% had no opinion.

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Election silence covers the entire day before the vote and voting day itself up to the moment polling stations close. In practice that means the whole of Saturday and up to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

This year, at 6 a.m. on Saturday, election silence was broken by a deputy justice minister, Arkadiusz Myrcha, who posted a graphic on social media platform X in favour of Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of his centrist Civic Platform (PO) party.

Myrcha quickly deleted the post and issued a statement apologising, saying it had happened “due to an error loading graphics”.

Myrcha’s actions were nevertheless condemned by the head of the National Electoral Commission (PKW), Sylwester Marciniak, who said that “such behaviour is unacceptable”.

“When it comes to people who hold public offices, they should set an example,” added Marciniak, who called for Myrcha to be held accountable if the violation was confirmed.

Meanwhile, on Saturday morning, another PO MP, Piotr Głowski, also violated election silence with a post on X. He likewise blamed a technical error and deleted the post.

Perhaps most controversially of all, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the leader of PO, made a social media post on Saturday evening that many critics said was a violation of election silence.

“A word for Sunday, from the Book of Deuteronomy 23:20-21,” wrote Tusk, alongside an image showing the biblical quotation, which outlines the prohibition on “lending to your brother at usurious interest”.

That was seen as a reference by Tusk to a scandal relating to a second apartment owned by opposition presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki. Among the details that have emerged in the case is that Nawrocki lent the elderly, disabled occupant of the apartment money at a high rate of interest.

PiS MP and former government minister Janusz Cieszyński criticised Tusk for “posting propaganda the day before the elections” during election silence. “The guy clearly thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

During election silence, it is illegal to conduct any kind of agitation on behalf of any candidate or party standing in the vote. That prohibition applies to normal members of the public and includes online activity. Violations of that ban can result in a fine.

It is also illegal to publish the results of opinion polls during that period. Such activity attracts the highest possible fines, ranging from half a million to 1 million zloty.

To get around that ban, some social media users publish leaks from exit polls using coded language that replaces the name of each candidate with a type of food and presents their polling figure as a price. The practice is referred to in Polish as bazarek, which translates as “little market”.

On Monday this week, the day after the election, police headquarters announced that they had recorded 327 cases of violations of election silence. Those included the removal or defacing of candidates’ posters, online political agitation, and a report of a man waving a flag supporting one candidate.

Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl