Shame on you, Kaczynski

The Kaczynski brothers, perfectly aware of the lack of support they have among the mainly young Polish population in the U.K., have made it really hard for them to vote in the parliamentary elections that took place today in decent conditions.

The Polish consulate in London was the place where all the voters in southern England with surnames starting with the letters L to Z had to go to exercise their right to vote. It seems incredible and ridiculous to do such a thing given the amount of Polish people living in England (a great number of them in London): around 1 million Polish live, work and pay taxes in the U.K. In Mielec, a 60000-inhabitant Polish town, there were today 30 election polls. Today, in the whole U.K., just 20.



The results, therefore, did not surprise anyone. Queues were embarrassing. There is no excuse to such lack of organization from a government which claims to rule a democratic country. Absolute premeditation was in the mind of all of those waiting for hours in the cold to be able to vote, specially when the English government had offered help to the Polish authorities to open more election polls, help which was refused on the grounds of lack of time to prepare.

Overall, me and my Polish wife, Ewa, spent 3 hours since we arrived until we left the consulate. Finally leaving by 5pm, and seeing that the queue was then even longer than when we had arrived at 2pm, we wondered how many people would not make it in time, since the polls were closing at 8pm. What happened today actually broke the civil rights and was anti-constitutional: every Polish citizen has the right to exercise their right to vote in equal grounds. And this did not happen today. Not only were many people late to vote due to the queuing, but many others did not stand the wait and decided to go back home given the situation, which is certainly beneficial to Kaczinski's interest.

The ones that decided to stay and vote took it, at least, with humor and patience. Polish people do not complain when it comes to their governments, used as they are to these sort of situations. As Ewa was telling me, Poland is the country of queues. Let us hope that their effort today was worth it, and that today's negligence could not stop the necessary political change in Poland. They deserve it.