Presidential elections were held in Poland on 28 June 2020. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 12 July, in which incumbent president Andrzej Duda, running with the support of Law and Justice, faced off against Civic Platform vice-chairman and Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski. Results from the second round of voting, announced by the National Electoral Commission (PKW) on 13 July, indicated that Andrzej Duda had won with 51.03% compared to Rafał Trzaskowski's 48.97%.
The first round of voting was due to be held on 10 May 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. On 6 May 2020, the Agreement party, which was in a governing alliance with the leading Law and Justice party and was opposed to pursuing the original election date, reached an arrangement to set new dates for the election. The following day, the PKW declared that the election would not be able to take place on 10 May 2020. On 3 June 2020, the Marshal of the Sejm, Elżbieta Witek, ordered the first round of the election to be held on 28 June 2020 and scheduled the second round on 12 July 2020.
According to the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the public broadcaster TVP "failed in its legal duty to provide balanced and impartial coverage" and "acted as a campaign vehicle for the incumbent".
Electoral system
The President of Poland is directly elected using a two-round system for a five-year term, with a two-term limit. Andrzej Duda's first term expired on 6 August 2020 when he reaffirmed his oath of office before the National Assembly, a joint session of the Sejm and Senate and began his second term.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Constitution, the president must be elected by an absolute majority of valid votes. If no candidate succeeds in passing this threshold in the first round, a second round of voting is held with the two candidates who received the largest shares of the vote.
In order to be registered to contest the election, a candidate must be a Polish citizen, be at least 35 years old on the day of the first round of the election, and have collected at least 100,000 voters' signatures by 10 June 2020 at midnight.
Polls opened on election day at 07:00 CEST and closed at 21:00 CEST (UTC+2).
COVID-19, election timing and controversy
The election was originally scheduled for 10 May 2020, which caused extreme political controversy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many candidates, constitutionalists and even politicians from the ruling coalition criticized the government's plan of holding the election as originally scheduled during the pandemic. As a compromise, the Agreement political party proposed lengthening the president's term by two years, which was supported by the Minister of Health, Łukasz Szumowski. This was rejected by the opposition. The main opposition party, Civic Platform, wanted the election to be held in May 2021. The ruling conservative party Law and Justice also wished to change the electoral rules and to organize the election by postal voting only. Changing election rules less than six months prior to voting was ruled to be unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2011. Voting only by post is considered unconstitutional by some including Polish Supreme Court in a non-binding opinion.
Email requests by Poczta Polska for private data
At 02:26 early in the morning on 23 April, every Polish mayor and city council president received an anonymous, unsigned e-mail from Poczta Polska (Polish Post) saying that they were required to deliver the private data of 30 million Polish citizens including their PESEL (national identification number), date of birth, address, and other private data in a .txt file format lacking any passwords or security. Many Polish mayors and city council presidents, lawyers, and other citizens criticized the order to provide such private data, stating that the order violated the GDPR and Polish Law, since the legal act referred to in the email had no legal validity; it concerned a bill that was still undergoing legislative procedures. Citizens and other officials stated their intention to file a lawsuit to the prosecutor's office about the possibility of crimes being committed by the government-run Poczta Polska and by the politicians responsible for the regulation.