Poland’s parliament, controlled by populist nationalists, decided on Thursday to hold a contentious national referendum on parliamentary election day, October 15.

The opposition has announced a boycott of this referendum organized at the initiative of the ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), which is, according to it, only an attempt to “manipulate” the elections.

The PiS wants the Poles to answer four questions: do they want to “sell off state assets by handing them over to foreign entities”?, do they support “a possible increase in the retirement age”?, want do they “remove the border barrier with Belarus”?, and are they in favor of “the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in accordance with the mechanism of forced relocation imposed by the bureaucracy European”?

According to polls, the PiS, in power since 2015, is credited with around 33% of voting intentions, just ahead of the Civic Platform (29%). Next are the libertarian ultranationalists of Konfederacja (12%), the Third Voice coalition (9.5%) and the left (nearly 9%).

The holding of the referendum was adopted by 234 votes for, 210 against and 7 abstentions. According to power, the questions are important for the future of Poland and the lives of Poles.

“Unimportant questions that no one raises”

Government spokesman Piotr Müller said the leader of the main opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, Donald Tusk, “is afraid of this referendum like the devil of holy water”. , because by their answers the citizens risk limiting its next decisions, in the event of victory in the legislative elections.

For its part, the entire opposition denounces a “shameless deception” on the part of power. “You are throwing irrelevant questions in the face of the Poles that no one, no party is raising today,” Krzysztof Gawkowski, a leftist lawmaker, said Thursday before the vote. According to him, no one in the opposition was talking about raising the retirement age, forced relocations or privatizations.

For Paulina Hennig-Kloska, of the centrist Poland 2050 party, the referendum is being organized with the aim of “manipulating the elections and once again dividing society”. According to leftist MP Joanna Senyszyn, the questions posed by PiS are simply “deeply stupid, leading, ideological, anti-European, based on false foundations and imprecise”.

The opposition also believes that the organization of the referendum is a means of circumventing the limits of electoral expenditure, precisely defined by law, while the amount of public expenditure in a referendum campaign knows no restrictions.