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The Government Is Crossing the Rubicon

May 6, 2020
Grzegorz Ekiert in Polityka weekly

JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: – I am not going to vote in the elections
GRZEGORZ EKIERT: – I won’t either.
JZ- Why?
Because, what the government is organizing has nothing to do with a democratic process.

JZ -Voting by mail is not democratic?

It could be. However, by itself, no election is democratic. In the Soviet system, there were many elections, that had nothing to do with democracy. Communist Poland was not a democratic country, and still the Parliament held numerous votes. The Central Committee of the communist party voted the laws in, the Polish citizens voted in the elections, the Stalinist courts voted on the death sentences for the Polish patriots. No one can say that these decisions were decided democratically. For democratic elections to take place a number of conditions needs to be met.

About the Author

Grzegorz Ekiert

Grzegorz Ekiert

Resident Faculty

Grzegorz Ekiert is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University and senior scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He is a resident faculty at the Minda ...
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