This article mostly disputes fairness of the election saying that they are still free. I think there are very reasonable points that this is not the case.
Free elections are confidential. By creating an absurd referendum which can be only boycotted and holding it at the same time as general elections people will be able to tell who’s voting for PiS and not based on whether they refuse referendum ballot.
This is a real issue - my aunt who lives in a rural Poland told me she won’t vote because she would either have to participate in referendum and contribute to it being lawfully binding, or face backlash from entire village for admitting to not voting for PiS. I convinced her that the referendum results are so open to interpretation that it doesn’t matter but there will be plenty of people in the same situation that feel coerced into impossible scenario.
The other thing that defines free elections is that every vote counts the same. Voting district sizes haven’t been adjusted for ages despite tectonic shifts in demographics. Obviously the rural regions that have been depopulating in favor of bigger cities will vote for PiS and will enjoy skewed vote weights.
There are plenty of similarities in modern authoritarian right playbook. In some aspects Poland did some things first, like using high courts to legislate abortion bans which US only followed later. I wonder if we’ll see some January 6th stuff if PiS loses, as unlikely as it might seem.
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