duh
Polish bureaucracy has finally got the better of me.
Buying the flat? No worries.
Registering in my newly bought flat permanently? Piece of cake.
Registering to vote in the local elections? Easy as pie... or so I thought.
The first time round was easy. I easily overcome the hurdle of not being on the main list by explaining my status as EU citizen, and was soon given various coloured pieces of paper on which to vote.
Second time round, today, I turned up, gave my address, told them straight away that I'd be on the dodatkowa list and waited for my slip of paper. The man eyed me with a smile and said that he remembered me from the last round, but that I wasn't on the list. The lady in charge said she'd call and find out why I'd been missed off. I was sure it was a simple mistake and that when she came back, I'd be handed my voting card.
She returned with a serious expression. "Przykro mi" she started. That wasn't good. "Did Pani go back to the urząd and say Pani would like to vote in the second round?"
"Er, no" I shook my head. "I registered and voted in the last round though."
"Unfortunately, you had to tell them if you wanted to vote in the second round too. Now it's too late."
The friendly man shrugged his shoulders.
It is one set of elections, but foreigners who wish to vote throughout THE SAME ELECTIONS have to inform the ones in charge on every occasion.
Well obviously! Why didn't I guess?
They obviously think I voted for President of Warsaw the first time, but when it came to a head-to-head between the top two candidates, and when my vote may actually count more than the first time round, I suddenly lost the urge to vote. Yeah, that makes sense.
It looks like the lady won, but if that smarmy Marcinkiewicz wins, blame me for not being a mindreader.
Buying the flat? No worries.
Registering in my newly bought flat permanently? Piece of cake.
Registering to vote in the local elections? Easy as pie... or so I thought.
The first time round was easy. I easily overcome the hurdle of not being on the main list by explaining my status as EU citizen, and was soon given various coloured pieces of paper on which to vote.
Second time round, today, I turned up, gave my address, told them straight away that I'd be on the dodatkowa list and waited for my slip of paper. The man eyed me with a smile and said that he remembered me from the last round, but that I wasn't on the list. The lady in charge said she'd call and find out why I'd been missed off. I was sure it was a simple mistake and that when she came back, I'd be handed my voting card.
She returned with a serious expression. "Przykro mi" she started. That wasn't good. "Did Pani go back to the urząd and say Pani would like to vote in the second round?"
"Er, no" I shook my head. "I registered and voted in the last round though."
"Unfortunately, you had to tell them if you wanted to vote in the second round too. Now it's too late."
The friendly man shrugged his shoulders.
It is one set of elections, but foreigners who wish to vote throughout THE SAME ELECTIONS have to inform the ones in charge on every occasion.
Well obviously! Why didn't I guess?
They obviously think I voted for President of Warsaw the first time, but when it came to a head-to-head between the top two candidates, and when my vote may actually count more than the first time round, I suddenly lost the urge to vote. Yeah, that makes sense.
It looks like the lady won, but if that smarmy Marcinkiewicz wins, blame me for not being a mindreader.
posted by Becca | 9:05 pm
5 Comments:
http://www.arbiter.pl/galeria/kononowicz.autografy
Everything pigeonholed, categorized, quarantined in its own little world of bureaucratic nonsense. And all without informing the citizenry of how to make use of it. Yes, that sounds like Poland to me.
"It looks like the lady won, but if that smarmy Marcinkiewicz wins, blame me for not being a mindreader."
Hm, I will now take a wild step in the dark here and venture the opinion that you may not necessarily be a PiS supporter. Call it a sixth sense. I don`t know how I do it.
i do not understand it ,why becca does not like the PIS party. :)
they send 1200 soldiers to afhganistan,to support england,...radek sikorski studied in oxford and has an engslish citizenship...norman davies is a PIS friend..and so on.
Maybe Davies is PiS-friendly, but certainly he votes Labour. Do you see any contradictions?
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