2024-05-23 20:03 update: 2024-05-24, 13:27
Photo PAP/Leszek Szymanski
The parliamentary investigative commission into the failed 2020 postal presidential elections is about to notify prosecutors of an alleged crime committed by the former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, during the organisation of the postal vote.
Jacek Karnowski, the vice-president of the commission told PAP on Thursday that the commission would file a notice concerning Morawiecki because "he had already admitted that he had signed the decision (about carrying out a postal vote)."
"He (Morawiecki - PAP) doesn't remember who filed a request for the vote, whether he discussed it with the opposition (at the time, the Civic Platform)," said Karnowski, adding that "he has trouble remembering many details, but he did acknowledge that he was the one who ultimately made the decision."
Karnowski said that the testimonies provided by Jacek Sasin, a former deputy prime minister, and Mariusz Kaminski, a former interior minister, would implicate Morawiecki regardless of the circumstances.
He further mentioned that this would not be the sole notification made in this matter and that subsequent ones were expected to concern primarily Sasin and Kaminski.
Poland's presidential election was initially scheduled to take place on May 10, 2020, in the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The PiS government made preparations for an entirely postal ballot, including printing and preparing to post the ballot papers, even before the relevant legislation allowing the election to take place became law.
The election eventually went ahead as normal.
After taking power over from PiS, Poland's new government set up a special commission to probe the postal elections which were eventually abandoned.
Morawiecki, who testified before the commission on Wednesday, was interrogated in connection with two decisions issued by him on April 16, 2020. The first one instructed the Polish Post (Poczta Polska) to take and implement "necessary action aimed at preparing for the elections of the President of the Republic of Poland in 2020 by post, due to the pandemic." The second decision obliged the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) to print postal ballots. (PAP)
mj/jch
