Former Prime Minister of Poland speaks at AIWS Roundtable

Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, WLA-CdM Member, Prime Minister of Poland (1992-1993), spoke at the AIWS Roundtable “Digital Technologies, Elections, and Democracy in times of COVID-19, co-organized by World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid and the Boston Global Forum on August 13, 2020. She addressed:

• Poland was the first EU country to hold presidential elections in times of the pandemic. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the elections in terms of electoral campaigns, electoral observation, and the elections day itself? One of the characteristics of the Polish elections were that the campaigns had to be done through the Internet and social networks due to the pandemic. From her point of view, how was this process? What was the impact of technology on this?
• Drawing on her experience as a Member of the Venice Commission, whose full name is the European Commission for Democracy through Law, which analyzes democratic institutions, fundamental rights and offers codes of good practice for electoral integrity, she spoke about how electronic voting could increase the percentage of participation for groups that usually have a low participation or whether this is due to a deeper debate linked to the political culture of these groups