Virus Trips Up Poland’s Ruling Party Ahead of Presidential Ballot

(Bloomberg) --

Poland’s presidential election is tightening as criticism mounts against the ruling party over scandals tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

With the country’s economic lockdown in a third month, support for the ruling Law & Justice party’s candidate, President Andrzej Duda, has dropped enough to require a runoff ballot to be held. An opinion poll showed him in the lead with 35% backing, against more than 60% in April.

Duda’s falling popularity coincides with accusations of government irregularities surrounding the virus, including officials breaking their own lockdown rules even as they tell Poles to stay inside to prevent contagion. Similar criticism is stoking a government crisis in the U.K., where Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide is facing calls to step down after breaching guidelines.

“If you require people to stick to painful restrictions and ignore them yourself, that’s is too much for many voters,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a senior associate at the Visegrad Insight think-tank. “An elite that is ostensibly showing its privileges, while requiring people to obey restrictive rules, will surely lose support.”

Growing Frustration

The election’s first round is likely to take place on June 28, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday. A run-off will take place two weeks later if no candidate wins at least 50%.

Voter frustration is also growing as the virus is now spreading faster in Poland than in neighboring Germany. While both countries have avoided the high death tolls seen in fellow European Union states such as Spain, Italy and France, Germany has more than twice Poland’s population and has carried out about seven times more tests.

But the scandals are biting the hardest.

Newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and others accused a friend of Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski of profiting from selling surgical masks to the government that were of sub-standard quality. Opposition lawmakers also allege they’ve found information that Szumowski’s brother has won state grants in tenders. The minister has denied wrongdoing.

Protests have also sprung up outside Poland’s state radio station after it censored a song ridiculing Law & Justice chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s visit to a graveyard at a time a government-ordered virus lockdown forbid Poles from making non-essential trips.

Morawiecki himself drew criticism when he was photographed at a re-opened cafe in southern Poland while not adhering to social distancing rules. The premier said the rules were suggestions rather than mandatory, which later prompted an awkward apology from his spokesman.

“The Prime minister has been misinformed” by his aides, Piotr Muller told TVN24 Monday. “It’s our fault that he wasn’t aware that social distancing recommendations for restaurants were binding rules and I want to apologize for that.”

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