At the request of the ruling party in Poland, Law and Justice (PiS), the Polish Sejm was unexpectedly suspended on Wednesday, the 11th of September.

The parliament is now scheduled to reconvene after the October 13th parliamentary elections.

The parliamentary session was due to end on September 13th. Now cut short by two days, the suspension leaves the opposition suspecting that the PiS has a hidden agenda.

What Agenda?

The speaker of the Parliament, Elzbieta Witek, said the move was initiated to give MPs time to prepare for the election. The outgoing parliament will reconvene after the election to continue debates originally scheduled for the 12th and 13th of September.

However, opposition politicians fear that the PiS could use the opportunity to introduce new bills, especially if the election does not go in their favour.

Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Civic Coalition was said: “Law and Justice have some sort of hidden plan. Either they do not believe that the result of the election will be positive for them, and they want to cover themselves. Or they want to prepare some law that could not be passed in normal circumstances. It does not bode well. And I do not believe Ms Witek’s claim that this is only being done for the benefit of MPs: you do not do things like this just out of love for politicians.”

Witek has assured the public and MPs that no new agenda will be added to those already scheduled to be debated. She said: “We have not broken the rules, everything is in accordance with the rules. This is not a new sitting of the Sejm, it is the same sitting that has already been planned.”

Polls show PiS in the lead, with support at about 47 per cent, while the centre-right Civic Coalition is estimated to receive about 29 per cent of the vote.