In the Covid-19 crisis, former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki was charged with exceeding his authority by ordering a presidential poll to be conducted only with postal votes. According to the prosecution, there were no legitimate justifications for organizing the 2020 presidential election in that manner. In the end, Morawiecki’s election in May was postponed and polling places started hosting it several days after.
At least 70 million Zlotys ($ 17.5 ) are estimated to be spent on planning the postal vote, which didn’t actually take place.
Morawiecki, a liberal who left office in late 2023, arrived for questioning at the city attorney’s office in Warsaw on Thursday, but refused to speak.
Piotr Skiba, a spokesman for the prosecution, informed writers that Morawiecki had been accused of acting inadvertently and of abusing his legal obligations.
Morawiecki attempted to organize an vote at a time when many people were dying from the coronavirus when he first arrived and assured followers that he was doing so in 2020.
He gave in order to be accessible in the case, he waived his resistance as a senator. He claimed that the new government, led by former prime minister Donald Tusk, had been conducting social persuasion against him.
” The Covid-19 epidemic was a great concern for the entire globe. The earth froze, the earth had no techniques. No one was prepared, no land, neither in Europe nor on another continents”, Morawiecki said.
He noted that he took action that, as perfect secretary, he was required by law to hold national elections within a specific time frame.
Several hundred people gathered around him in aid, chanting his title.
The allegations come as Tusk’s state searches for former conservative state members, who it accuses of violating the rule of law and corruption. Morawiecki and another reject those claims.
A court previously ruled in 2020 that the use of the postal service to conduct the national election violated several of the law’s requirements.
