Politics 2023 Polish Elections

[NoOne]

Anyone venture a guess as to who will be able to form a government?

 

[Musashi]

***** ***
#PiSdämmerung.

Die PiS-Männer have won the elections according to the exit polls, but they have zero chance to build a majority coalition.
Their the only possible coalition partner, Konfederacja, underperformed during the elections.

Poland election: opposition claims win after strong exit poll result – as it happened

Polls put ruling PiS in first place but suggest route to government for opposition coalition led by Donald Tusk’s party

www.theguardian.com

 

[Chomiq]

Exit polls so far.

Looking forward to final results.

 

[NoOne]

I smell a KO led coalition.

EDIT:
Presuming the "actual" election results resemble the exit polls...

 

[Musashi]

View attachment 452672
Exit polls so far.

Looking forward to final results.

PiS are national socialists in fact. They are just a more retarded and less experienced version of the Orban-led Fidesz in Hungary.

I've not been participating in any Polish parliamentary elections since 2005, but I decided to do it this time. I was just fed up with calling people like me unpatriotic or German agents or a similar sh1te. We cannot afford EU funds to be frozen due to Poland not obeying the rule of law for any longer. The people who violated the constitution and law should go to jail, so noone will try doing the same in the future. That's what I voted for.

Something was really amazing: these elections were the elections with the highest turnout in Polish history.

Polish election turnout likely highest since fall of communism, electoral commission says

The turnout in Poland's general election was probably the highest since the fall of communism in 1989, the head of the electoral commission said on Sunday, after an exit poll put it at 72.9%.

www.reuters.com

 

[Chomiq]

As a small business owner all I can hope is that I no longer will have to give 50% of my income to the government.

 

[Mike1976]

As a small business owner all I can hope is that I no longer will have to give 50% of my income to the government.

In that case hoping for a left-leaning government is never in your best interest.

 

[Mike1976]

Die PiS-Männer have won the elections according to the exit polls, but they have zero chance to build a majority coalition.

I heard the same thing regarding Fico in Slovakia. A leftist party gave him a majority within days of the election. Most politicians would sell their relatives for power.

 

[Musashi]

In that case hoping for a left-leaning government is never in your best interest.

You don't get the context. Die PiS-Männer are more leftists than the official leftists. If you are not a national minority, a sex minority, an atheist, but you are still a left winger, you vote for PiS.

 

[Mike1976]

You don't get the context. Die PiS-Männer are more leftists than the official leftists. If you are not a national minority, a sex minority, an atheist, but you are still a left winger, you vote for PiS.

Chomiq didn't mention any party and neither did I

 

[Musashi]

As a small business owner all I can hope is that I no longer will have to give 50% of my income to the government.

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[Chomiq]

In that case hoping for a left-leaning government is never in your best interest.

The right wing government was already giving €150 to you for just having a kid. 5 kids? €1000. They increased minimum wage by 27% or so for the next year. They pay out 13th and 14th(?!) pensions.

Oh and to those saying that migrant situation will become worse now - take a stroll in my town of roughly 40k people, within the past 3 years we suddenly had a massive influx of Bangladeshi, Indian and other people on "work visas" to a local chemical plant (33% under government control). It peaked in 2021 with over 4000 foreign workers, that's almost 10% of the actual population. All while the ruling PiS was saying "We will not accept illegal migrants from Muslim countries". Suddenly I can't take a walk around the center of the town without running into some dark skinned fella.

 

[Musashi]

Poland is back in Europe's mainstream – and that could secure the EU's future | Ivan Krastev

Europe’s turn to the right now looks reversible, while Donald Tusk’s victory leaves Viktor Orbán politically isolated, says political scientist and author Ivan Krastev

www.theguardian.com

It was a funny moment when the turnout was nearly 75%, while the turnout for the referendum was about 40%. 35% of voters refused to participate in the referendum. So did I.
Die PiS-Männer have got 194 seats, while they need 231 to govern Poland. Their usual tactics in the past was to bribe or blackmail the opposition MPs to join them. There's absolutely zero chance for that this time. They could bribe or blackmail several MPs but not 37.
The opposition wants to govern Poland, but the situation is also tricky. They have got a total of 248 MPs, but the critical party is Lewica that has 26 MPs. It's a coalition of left-wing parties. Out of these 26 MPs, 7 belong to Razem who is a far-left party and an odd element in the coalition. Either Razem is kicked out or it will hold the coalition a hostage, so the future government won't be able to rule effectively.

 

[Chomiq]

Don't forget the new name for the (soon to be former) opposition: "Coalition of betrayal". Turns out majority of Poles voted for traitors, according to PiS.

 

[BravoZulu]

**Thoughts from our Polish members?**

This week, Donald Tusk won a vote of confidence in Poland’s parliament to lead a new government as the country’s new prime minister, following a failed bid by the incumbent, Mateusz Morawiecki, to remain in that role.

The vote provoked a visibly nervous reaction from the leader of the outgoing populist government, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who stormed up to the rostrum to denounce Tusk, a former prime minister who subsequently served as president of the European Council, as a ‘German agent’. Kaczynski’s behaviour since the October election has been all too revealing: the all-powerful national populist leader of the past eight years has lost control—of himself as well as of the country.

Kaczynski can thank his own hateful policies for his electoral defeat on 15 October (following a record voter turnout of 75%). Though his Law and Justice (PiS) party won more seats than any other single party, Tusk has built a broad four-party coalition with a solid parliamentary majority. He is now taking great pains to show his appreciation for his partners, including by creating 26 ministerial positions in the new government.

Tusk’s administration will need to show consistency and unity to deal with Poland’s many crises. After years of PiS illegally packing major judicial institutions with political cronies, a top domestic priority is to restore the rule of law. Tusk also promises a ‘return to Europe’, prompting celebrations across the European media, especially in Germany, a key neighbour with which Kaczynski had been picking absurd fights.

Paradoxically, the PiS government was generally an easy partner for Germany, since it isolated Poland within the European Union. While Tusk’s victory was greeted with joy in Berlin, German leaders surely know they will be dealing with a serious, seasoned player who will defend Poland’s interests more effectively than PiS ever did.

In his exposé (a speech outlining the new government’s plans), Tusk looked directly at PiS’s parliamentary deputies and made clear that no one in the EU will be able to push him around. In doing so, he took the air out of PiS’s aggressive propagandising about him being subordinate to Berlin, and he sent a clear signal to both the German and French governments. He has already announced that he will oppose proposed EU treaty changes designed to remove the unanimity requirement, warning against ‘naive, sometimes even unbearable Euro-enthusiasm’ behind efforts to ‘change the character of the EU’.

In terms of foreign policy, Tusk says he will focus primarily on maximising support for Ukraine from Poland and other EU and NATO states. He didn’t mince words: ‘I cannot listen to politicians who talk about being tired of the situation in Ukraine. They are tired, they say it to the face of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Poland’s task is to loudly and firmly demand that the West fully resolve and help Ukraine in this war.’ There was a clear message here for Hungary’s pro-Kremlin prime minister, Viktor Orban, whom Tusk knows well and once considered a friend.

Still, Tusk also declared that his government will show ‘cordial and benevolent assertiveness when it comes to Polish interests’ on the Polish–Ukrainian border, where Polish truckers have set up blockades to prevent their lower-paid Ukrainian counterparts from entering. Tusk says he will offer an immediate solution to this problem, which is destroying the Ukrainian economy.

On the fraught issue of immigration, Tusk showed during his stint as president of the European Council that he has a strong, principled position on the matter. His policy can be summed up as ‘borders first’. All borders must be secured before a properly functioning migration and asylum system can be established, though the authorities can ‘protect the Polish border and be humane at the same time’. His government intends to seal the border, but also to end the illegal practice of ‘push-backs’, which has cost the lives of more than 50 people on the Polish–Belarusian border in recent years.

The importance of this issue is underscored by the fact that Tusk already has plans to fly to Tallinn and meet with the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They have many of the same priorities: dealing with the war in Ukraine, securing their borders (all are targets of a Russian and Belarusian hybrid war that includes funnelling immigrants over their borders) and strengthening their cooperation with like-minded governments.

In his exposé, Tusk made sure to mention Finland, signalling a stronger focus on NATO’s northern front. During Tusk’s first government, Radek Sikorski (who is returning as head of the foreign ministry to rebuild Poland’s ruined diplomacy) and Sweden’s then prime minister, Carl Bildt, forged a special relationship. Now, Tusk wants to do the same within NATO. It is a sensible strategy, since he can’t hope for cooperation within the Visegrad group, owing to populist spoilers like Orban and Slovakia’s new prime minister, Robert Fico.

Poland today is like a ship that needs to be rebuilt while at sea. The situation is not unlike 1989. The biggest difference is that the economy today is in crisis, rather than in ruins. Still, other challenges are just as difficult, if not more so. Back then, Russia (or, rather, the Soviet Union) was on its knees, whereas now it is waging wars of aggression. There is no Polish politician today who could handle these challenges better than Tusk.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/w...erm=What Donald Tusks return means for Poland

 

[Chomiq]

**Thoughts from our Polish members?**

We are getting back on track to get away from Hungary's route of "democracy". We already see first decisions being made, however PiS lockeys have dug themselves deep and it's going to take a while to unfuckup everything. Yesterday it was announced that there's no money left in MoF budget for this year, within the past month they managed to spend almost $800k on bonuses for the members of the last government and the "2 week" PiS post-election government. Now the ministry has no money to pay salaries for the new staff members. Budget for 2024 had initially assumed $1.5 billion bonus from the central bank, now it turns out that central bank is $5 billion in red.
Time will only tell how badly our finances have been damaged in the past 8 years.

 

[NoOne]

We are getting back on track to get away from Hungary's route of "democracy". We already see first decisions being made, however PiS lockeys have dug themselves deep and it's going to take a while to unfuckup everything. Yesterday it was announced that there's no money left in MoF budget for this year, within the past month they managed to spend almost $800k on bonuses for the members of the last government and the "2 week" PiS post-election government. Now the ministry has no money to pay salaries for the new staff members. Budget for 2024 had initially assumed $1.5 billion bonus from the central bank, now it turns out that central bank is $5 billion in red.
Time will only tell how badly our finances have been damaged in the past 8 years.

I worry that the seemingly ad hoc nature of the purchase of military hardware under PiS will make it more difficult to institute a more systemic , realistic and sustainable reconstruction of Polish military capabilities.

 

[Musashi]

A major sh1tshow developed when the new government turned off the state TV signal and took over the television.
PiS MPs started a protest and attempted to enter the television buildings.
The former Prime Minister tried to use a back door, but it was locked:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-public-media-chiefs-dismissed-news-channel-stops-broadcasting-2023-12-20/

 

[Telmar]

A major sh1tshow developed when the new government turned off the state TV signal and took over the television.
PiS MPs started a protest and attempted to enter the television buildings.
The former Prime Minister tried to use a back door, but it was locked:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-public-media-chiefs-dismissed-news-channel-stops-broadcasting-2023-12-20/

I saw some angry tweets in Polish about that. I thought they just had changed management!

 

[Musashi]

The sh1tshow continues:

Poland police arrest fugitive MPs as tensions rise between new and old governments

Two men had taken refuge in Andrzej Duda’s presidential palace after dispute

www.theguardian.com