The high priests of Poland are urging the faithful to vote in the European parliamentary election for persons who “fully represent the point of view of the Catholic Church”. No party is cited, but, logically, this tends to favour the conservative right. Total voter turnout is predicted to be as low as 13 percent, which would be a record.

A senior Civic Platform member, Danuta Hübner, whose party is leading in opinion surveys, says the electorate is hard to convince: “The challenge for us, for all the candidates is not only to make people vote for us, but to make people indeed just go to the polls. And here they don’t feel that they can have impact on what European Union or European Parliament decides for them.” The ruling pro-EU Civic Platform has a 45 percent rating, the opposition Law and Justice conservatives 25 percent. Hubner notes that a lot of eurosceptics and anti-European MEPs have come from Poland, and hopes the people who chose them will vote differently in these elections. Law and Justice President Lech Kaczynski is a eurosceptic, and he is still holding back from signing the EU’s Lisbon Treaty for his country, calling it “pointless” until the Irish approve it. Only one fifth of Poles cast a ballot in the last EU elections, torn by doubt. In the run-up to this round, many say they have lost faith in their politicians.More about: European elections, Poland, Religion

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