“State-run television in particular engaged in numerous instances of manipulation, broke election law and, in fact, carried out the largest attack on free, democratic elections since 1989, that is why we will intervene,” Robert Winnicki, a leader of the Confederation grouping, told a press conference on Tuesday.
According to the grouping, Poland’s state-run public broadcaster TVP ignored a court decision and failed to publish pre-election polls which showed the Confederation crossing the 5 percent election threshold it needed to enter the lower house.
The Confederation said it had earlier won a case against TVP brought after the broadcaster did not include the grouping's showing in poll results screened in a programme before Poland’s parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Michał Wawer, a legal advisor and a member of the Confederation, said that “last Saturday […] Telewizja Polska [TVP] was ordered to broadcast an apology, a correction and, above all, publish six polls in which the Confederation crossed the election threshold.”
The public broadcaster “did not do that, and kept […] 3 million viewers under the impression that the Confederation will, very likely, fail to cross the election threshold,” Wawer said.
He added that TVP had not complied with the court decision in order to “manipulate the results of the election” and that a large portion of the public broadcaster’s viewers are the Confederation’s “potential electorate.”
“It is likely that a large number of viewers did not vote for the Confederation in the end, because there were afraid that their vote might be wasted because we would not cross the electoral threshold. That is why we will file an electoral protest with the Supreme Court, demanding an annulment and a re-run of the elections,” Wawer was quoted by PAP as saying.
According to the official election returns, the Confederation group won 6.81 percent of votes, crossing the 5-percent voter support threshold that Polish parties need to clear to enter parliament, and secured 11 seats in the Sejm, the lower chamber of the country's bicameral legislature.
Poland's ruling conservatives Law and Justice (PiS) party won 43.59 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election and gained 235 seats to maintain a majority in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, securing a second term in power.
(jh/pk)
Source: PAP