Korupcja wyborcza jako patologia relacji państwo – biznes
Electoral corruption as dysfunction in state and business relation

Summary/Abstract: In Poland it is commonly believed, that when the state apparatus organises a procedure to choose a candidate from many applicants, that will be granted a public service, and from him will the decision-making process depend in a certain range, corruption is appearing. In most cases this action is called „buying votes”. The character of financial benefits in exchange for voting in a certain way makes it dependable on finding a person, that will find such benefits a sufficient reason to sacrifice their right to vote independently. However, it is difficult to control whether the person accepting such an offer votes in the agreed way. It comes as a result of the fact that to acquire benefits they only need to affirm it verbally, after leaving the electoral premises. Accordingly „buying votes” requires the possession of suitable amounts of „available resources”. Extraordinary attention is deserved by the fact, that very often in such practice outer business entities are involved, allowing the candidate the usage of their resources in „illegal election process”. In the long term these entities expect political benefits in exchange for the candidate support. This way of supporting is strictly connected to „buying the amount of votes needed to win”. Such action definitively is an outcome of the fact that the passive electoral right user does not always have the required amount of financial resources to „buy votes” himself. Beyond the reasonable doubt this phenomenon is considered „a pathological phenomenon” and because of that, the unacceptability of such behaviors is supported by the legislator with criminal law, however, as the media reports show, it is still a very common process

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