Jan A. Nicolas / DPA / ТАСС
Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party came in first in the parliamentary elections held last Sunday, according to preliminary estimates. According to exit polls, it received 36.8% of the vote, Donald Tusk’s opposition Civic Coalition 31.6%, the Third Way bloc 13%, the Left 8.6%, and the euroskeptic and nationalist Confederation of Liberty and Independence party 6.2%. The results will be updated, but the overall picture will not change much.
What does it mean? A total of 460 deputies have been elected to the Seimas. That is, in order to form an effective coalition, it is necessary to get at least 231 supporters. Now let’s do the math: PiS is expected to have 200 seats. The extreme right — so far the only potential partner of Kaczynski’s party — has only 12. Together — 212. That’s a bit small…
The Civic Coalition has 163 seats. Possible allies — the Third Way and the Left — will get 55 and 30 seats, respectively. All together, that’s 248 deputies. That is quite enough to form a center-right-left (!) government. The possible alliance, however, looks very exotic, but what does not happen in politics. All these parties have been in opposition since 2015 and have suffered a lot from the arbitrary rule of PiS, which has been in power all this time.
President Andrzej Duda (Kaczynski’s protégé, by the way) promised to give priority to the party that won the election to form the cabinet. However, PiS, as we have calculated, has no chance of getting what it wants. But this is at first glance. Options are possible, as they say. What are they? For example, an attempt to pull the centrist bloc “Third Way” to its side with generous promises. Or to try to push through the creation of the so-called «minority government». Or, finally, to get the Seimas re-elected.
In any case, Kaczynski and Co. will not give up power easily. This means that Poland will be plunged into a state of instability and political uncertainty for quite a long time. For now, the statements of the main participants in the race look bravely.
«No one has ever managed to win parliamentary elections three times in a row», reported the current prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS). He was the one who represented the party’s interests in the pre-election battles.
«We have really succeeded. In the near future we will create a new, good, democratic government with our partners. Poland has won, you have won, the Poles have won», Donald Tusk (Civic Coalition) made his arguments. He is an experienced political fighter, having been both prime minister and chairman of the Council of Europe.
I should note that a referendum was held in parallel with the parliamentary elections, where four questions were put forward at the initiative of PiS. However, it failed: according to the constitution, the vote is considered valid if more than 50% of voters took part in the plebiscite. But only 40% of Poles came to the ballot boxes.
To broaden your horizons, let me tell you what the people were going to be asked about. It was about the attitude to migrants from the Middle East and Africa, privatization and sale of state enterprises by foreign entities, raising the retirement age. One of the questions concerned the wall on the border with Belarus and sounded as follows: «Do you support the elimination of the barrier on the border between the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Belarus?»
Before the elections, PiS was involved in several scandals. Thus, in July, the EU court satisfied the complaint of the European Commission, which considered the judicial reform carried out in Poland to be contrary to the EU legislation. The electorate’s discontent was caused by the ruling party’s attempts to use the «militaristic psychosis» — the «urgent» topic of increasing defense spending — in its election campaign. This culminated in a grand military parade in Warsaw in August, which was dominated by U.S. equipment. And the most ridiculous was the latest revelation, called «Bollywood with fake visas». It turned out that a number of consulates gave for bribes Schengen visas to Indian citizens, who were listed as representatives of the Indian film industry. It was found that the «choreographer» could not dance and the «costumer» had never worked in the film industry. The prosecutor’s office is now investigating 268 similar cases involving citizens of the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And this is despite the fact that Kaczynski’s party officially opposed the influx of migrants.
Each of the main competing parties promised Poles «golden mountains» before the elections. PiS, for example, promoted initiatives from replacing elevators and building garages to organizing school trips and meals in hospitals. The Local Shelf program was developed especially for farmers. Its essence is to require supermarkets to offer at least two-thirds of their food from local suppliers.
The Civic Coalition promised to introduce tax breaks, raise teachers’ salaries, index pensions, shift the obligation to pay for sick leaves from entrepreneurs to the Social Security Administration, and finance the IVF from the state budget.
It is noteworthy that the disagreements between the Polish political antagonists concern mainly the domestic agenda. On the foreign policy track, they are like twin brothers: they pray to the United States, fully support the European Union and NATO, and advocate the continuation and strengthening of sanctions pressure on Russia. Temporary tensions with Ukraine related to the restriction on imports of Ukrainian agricultural products will not prevent them from standing firmly on Kiev’s side, but keeping in mind their territorial claims to a number of western regions.
So whoever comes to power in Warsaw, Poles will remain at least aggressive and unfriendly towards Russia and Belarus. If not to say hostile.