Presidential elections 2010

Poles went to polls

I don’t know about others but Poland is a pseudo-democratic state. And not because until fairy recently we had a communist government but because we do what, I think, every other European democracy does – publish opinion polls before voting. To explain why I think it’s wrong, I’m going to use this year’s presidential elections as an example.

If you’d asked the citizens whom they were going to vote for in the next presidential elections back when the late president Kaczyński was alive and in office, many wouldn’t have the lightest idea whom they would like to be the next head of state. Even if they’d known the names of the candidates, they’d still struggle to name one they would’ve supported. Only after watching the debates and becoming more familiar with the candidates, could the people make up their minds and vote according to their political views. However, that wasn’t the case. Almost as soon as we knew we were going to have to vote, a number of polling companies published the results of their studies. Those polls showed that basically only two candidates were serious contenders (Kaczyński’s twin brother and Komorowski). From then on, many of those who’d been inclined towards voting for a certain candidate or weren’t sure who to vote for, realised that it didn’t matter anymore and that they’d have to vote for one of those two if they didn’t want their vote to be ‘wasted’.

I think such polls are a more powerful and cheaper tool in influencing people’s voting than the politicians’ multimillion euro campaigns.

Now, it may be true that a politician as dull as Komorowski would’ve still received the greatest share of votes even if there had been not polls published but I also know that the few people I’d spoken to told me that they weren’t going to vote the candidates that suited them most but for one of the two main ones.

For a short while even I considered that but in the end voted according to my conscience and my political views.