On the Road to Electoral Democracy? Erosion of the Free and Fair Elections Standard in the Era of the Polish Constitutional Crisis after 2015

This article attempts to diagnose the state of democracy in Poland, remaining in the era of constitutional crisis and following the erosion of the free and fair elections standard, which determines the criteria for distinguishing an electoral democracy from a liberal democracy. For this purpose, the individual elements constituting this concept are analyzed, both having a procedural dimension and referring to the course of the three phases of the electoral process itself (the period before election day, on election day and after election day), as well as referring to the standards of honesty, reliability, the real possibility of alternative power or equal opportunities. The conclusions drawn at individual stages of the deliberations, including an indication of the destabilisation of electoral law, the erosion of guarantees regarding the reliability of elections, disproportion in the access of political party representatives to public media, lead to a thesis on the formation of electoral democracy in Poland, which can be described as a democratic system devoid of liberal values. It is characterised by restrictions on freedom of association, freedom of speech and academic freedom, electoral distortions, unequal access of representative political parties to the public media and judicial guarantees related to the electoral process.