A former Polish prime minister is charged with exceeding his powers over a 2020 election call

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A former Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was charged Thursday with exceeding his powers when he ordered a presidential election to be carried out solely with postal votes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prosecutors say there were no legal grounds to organize the presidential election of 2020 in that way. In the end the election Morawiecki wanted to hold in May was postponed and conducted at polling stations several weeks later. The cost to taxpayers of organizing the postal vote which didn’t happen is estimated to be at least 70 million zlotys ($17.5).

Morawiecki, a conservative who left office in late 2023, arrived for questioning at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw on Thursday, but refused to testify.

A spokesperson for prosecutors, Piotr Skiba, told reporters that Morawiecki had been charged with exceeding his authority and failing to fulfill official duties.

Morawiecki told supporters on his arrival that he was doing his duty as prime minister in 2020 by trying to organize an election at a time when many were dying from the coronavirus. He waived his immunity as a lawmaker to make himself available in the case. He argued that he was the victim of political persecution by the new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

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“The COVID-19 pandemic was a great challenge for the entire world. The world froze, the world had no procedures. No one was prepared, no country, neither in Europe nor on other continents,” Morawiecki said.

He noted that he acted because, as prime minister, he was constitutionally required to organize a presidential election within a certain time frame.

Several dozen people gathered around him in support, chanting his name.

The charges come as Tusk’s government seeks to bring to justice members of the former conservative government, which it accuses of violating rule of law and corruption. Morawiecki and others reject those allegations.

A court already ruled in 2020 that the decision to ask the national postal service to prepare the presidential election by postal vote violated several provisions of the law.