Will the opposition and its media efforts discourage Poles from voting in the referendum, which — by Sejm decision — will be held together with the parliamentary elections on 15 October this year?
Read: an interview on the referendum’s role. Professor Ryba notes that the ruling party PiS raises important topics, and that any substantive discussion tends to cloud the opposition’s reputation.
A survey conducted by the Social Changes workshop for the portal wPolityce.pl indicates that 45 percent of those questioned intend to participate in the referendum.
Meanwhile, 41 percent declare they will not take part in the vote and will not answer the four questions posed by the parliamentary majority.
Fourteen percent of respondents chose the answer “difficult to say.”
Examining voter attitudes reveals notable splits: among those who want to participate, 94 percent are supporters of Law and Justice, and 75 percent align with the Confederation. Up to 44 percent of supporters of Poland 2050 also stated they would cast ballots. Interestingly, even after Donald Tusk suggested the referendum would be invalidated, 19 percent of Civic Coalition voters expressed an intention to answer all four questions on topics such as immigration, the border wall, privatization, and the retirement age.
Survey awareness appears high, with 82 percent of respondents reporting that they had heard about the referendum. When turnout was discussed, 45 percent indicated that the referendum would not meet the legal threshold because turnout was insufficient. Yet the referendum campaign had not yet begun, leaving a large share of Poles — 14 percent — without a firm opinion at the time of questioning.
Readers were invited to consider how they would vote in a referendum, using the same ballot questions featured on the official paper. The research was carried out using the CAWI method (Computer Assisted Web Interview) on August 25–28, 2023, with a nationwide online panel designed to be representative of Poland in terms of gender, age, and place of residence. A total of 1,040 individuals participated in the study.
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(Source: wPolityce)