Since the first quarter of 2020, the whole world has been struggling with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. More and more governments are introducing restrictions and bans for security reasons, with the aim of limiting the transmission of the virus and reducing health risks for citizens. The scale of the problem is best illustrated by the rising numbers of infections and deaths. In addition to the epidemic threat worldwide, the pandemic has brought to light many other problems and challenges. One of them is growing crisis of democracy around the world. Using a systemic approach, the article sets out to analyse the state and problems of contemporary Lithuanian democracy under pandemic conditions, focusing also on indicators of democracy and public opinion polls. It evaluates, inter alia, the state of Lithuanian democracy, the political system and its openness to citizens.

The function of public debates is crucial these days. Experts believe that presidential debates may decide the final election results. All that matters is what each candidate will say and the way in which they will present themselves. Public debate is a tool for creating common knowledge, thus knowledge about the knowledge of others. Performed in accordance with understandable and accessible rules, it is the foundation for legitimizing actions taken in presidential elections. The method of organizing the debate has therefore fundamental value for public management. Shaping the conditions and simplifying the interaction processes between participants of the public debate is the idea of public management. Observations on public discourse are usually disciplinary in nature, as they relate to phenomena occurring in the field of politics, sociology and media communication2. The aim of the paper is therefore to define and assess what conditions for the presidential debate in 2020 have been met and what issues and whether they were rightly raised in it. The following hypothesis was adopted for the paper: „The public debate in the 2020 presidential elections in Poland did not concern important issues for Poles, but focused only on secondary, rather unimportant aspects”. The paper formulated the following research questions: what is the essence and scope of a public debate?, what issues were touched upon during the 2020 presidential debate in Poland?, how does the presidential debate translate into society’s evaluation of a presidential candidate? Secondary sources were used in order to achieve the expressed aim of the paper, The literature on the subject, including issues related to the analysis of public discourse, scientific publications, research reports and websites can be classified as secondary sources. The methods that will be used for research in the paper will be: a method of examining documents and descriptive methods. The technique of examining documents is based on examining the already existing source materials and usually takes place in the field of formalized groups. Typically, such research is carried out in organizations or enterprises, where the foundation of operation are legal acts, regulations defining the profile and method of activity, and official documents. Such a technique finds wide application in various fields due to its versatile nature. In fact, every available document can be the subject of research and, at least in a specific part, present a given situation. The paper consists of three parts. The first allows getting acquainted with the topic of public discourse in theoretical terms. In addition, the basic elements of public discourse between representatives of the political elite are also presented here. The second part describes the public debate before the first round of presidential elections in 2020 in Poland. The main issues discussed during the debate and the candidates’ statements were described, with particular emphasis on the responses of Andrzej Duda and Rafał Trzaskowski. Efforts were also made to present elements and issues that were missing from the public debate. The third part is a complementary part and is a short description of the public debate before the second round of the 2020 presidential elections in Poland. The ending summarizes the whole work, which is a summary of conclusions that have been drawn from own research and theoretical considerations included in the theoretical division of the work.