With the ballot day, June 7th, approaching, European Parliament election campaign has entered the final stretch. The turnout, as in the previous election to the European Parliament is expected to be much lower than that in national parliament election, and even worse than in local parliament elections. Polish candidates to the EP are trying to look for support among Polish communities abroad, and campaigners in the UK encourage Poles to vote locally, for British candidates.
Joanna Najfeld reports
According to the recent Eurobarometer estimates, only about 1/3 of respondents declared they would consider voting in the EP election. And this is the average number for all EU states together. In Poland, as few as 13% of citizens plan to vote. In the previous 2004 EP ballot, only 1 in 5 Poles cast their vote.
Desperate for votes, Polish candidates to the European Parliament have started searching for support abroad. Polish citizens outside the country may vote for candidates from the Warsaw constituency so ballot runners from this region launched a last minute campaign.
Major opposition Law and Justice party nominees are campaigning in the United States. So is the euro-sceptic Libertas. Polish Americans traditionally support conservatives. In last elections, the conservative Law and Justice won 67% of the vote there, while it lost in the country. Maybe that's why far left Democratic Left Alliance nominees prefer to try their chances in London. Ruling Civic Platform party is not campaigning abroad personally, but they launched an Internet project targeting Polish voters in Berlin, Paris, Toronto and Sydney. They have also sent posters to Belgium and Holland. Smaller parties, like the minor coalition Peasant Party or the Polish Right, currently outside the parliament, are not campaigning abroad.
While Polish nominees fight for every hundred votes, which with the expected low turnout could prove decisive, campaigners in the UK try to mobilize the local Polish community to vote in the European elections for British candidates, which they also can choose as residents of that country.
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