Abstract
The article describes Internet-based campaigning by presidential candidates in Poland before the election date scheduled on 10th May 2020, an election which has not taken place due to the coronavirus pandemic. It also refers to the political and legal chaos that spread in Poland at that time. The campaign was peculiar, since, due to restrictions instigated to control the epidemic, candidates were deprived of the possibility to proceed with a direct campaign. As a result, the only possibility they had was to campaign in the media, especially the Internet. Apart from describing this bizarre non-campaign, which was not finalized by casting ballots, the article also attempts to draw more general conclusions on the importance and role of campaigning and election communication in social media.
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Notes
- 1.
The critical assessment of candidates’ Internet activity is relative, since rules and procedure for campaigning and election are uncertain. Reasons of the uncertainty are described in the previous part of the article.
- 2.
CATI survey covering a representative sample of 1013 people.
- 3.
Direct CAPI interview survey involving 958 random sample of adult Poles. It should be noted that CAPI surveys usually favour incumbents, since some of respondents do not want to reveal that they would vote for opposition candidates (www.cbos.pl, 2019).
- 4.
According to the media report by PRESS_SERVICE Monitoring Mediów, between mid-January 2020 and 12 March, which is before instigating of the state of epidemic, 235 thou. publications about coronavirus appeared in Polish traditional media and over one million in social media (www.psmm.pl, 2020).
- 5.
State of emergency prevents holding elections during and 90 days after it is announced. At the same time, it proportionally extends the term of office of the incumbent president.
- 6.
CATI survey covering representative sample of 1016 adult Poles.
- 7.
In the seventh presidential election in Poland after the 1989 system transformation, Kidawa-Błońska was the fourth female candidate and the first one having a real chance to play a major role, winning included, provided the campaign was implemented in normal circumstances.
- 8.
In one of his comments on the current state of law in Poland and the violation of the Constitution by the ruling party, Szymon Hołownia showed emotions accompanied by discreet tears. This happened on the occasion of the Third May National Holiday, the Polish public holiday celebrating the anniversary of the Constitution adopted on 3 May 1791. The video footage was widely reported by major media. Although it was commented upon in different ways, it drew attention of Internet users, as shown by the number of views (over 100 thou.), a record number to date (Smutny biało-czerwony poranek z Szymonem #47, 02 May 2020).
- 9.
According to Spider’s Web, “election committees found it problematic to put the name of the election committee into the cell ‘paid by’. Ads with first and last name in the cell pass the authorization” (following: Grodecka, 2019).
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Piontek, D., Ossowski, S. (2021). The “Non-Campaign” and the “Non-Elections” on the Internet in the 2020 “Spring” Presidential Election Campaign in Poland. In: Musiał-Karg, M., Luengo, Ó.G. (eds) Digitalization of Democratic Processes in Europe. Studies in Digital Politics and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71815-2_5
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