Polish Politics and Elections

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Heat, do you also have that feeling that recently campaign got a little bit more boring/tonned down?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Heat, do you also have that feeling that recently campaign got a little bit more boring/tonned down?

Depends how you look at it, there doesn't seem to be much happening in the cities at present but I think that's partly because the parties are now focusing more effort on promoting candidates for the sejmiki, which are not and never have been interesting.

btw, you're from Łódź, aren't you? Do you know anything about that whole thing with the PO and SLD councillors supposedly voting against a proposal for free meals for schoolchildren and then immediately putting the same thing in their election programme?

Maybe that is only mine perspective, but until Nowacka joined KO there were some events, conventions and now a little bit everything got slowed down.

As for the meals it was like this:

1) Koalicja Tak dla Łodzi got signatures for that project.
2) City councilors removed that project from the agenda arguing that there is no money for such projects. Later SLD proposed a that there should be test project which will include just few schools.
3) There were protests made by Tak dla Łodzi that they are ignoring signatures of citizens etc.
4) Zdanowska proposed to Tak dla Łodzi a meeting to solve that issue. They decided that project will be included into agenda once more and UMŁ will work with people who presented that citizens project and they will together work later  on implementation of that project.
5) After all that shenanigans with Nowacka and KO pretending to be social-democratic-conservative-liberal force they presented free meals as part of their electoral programme. And what is more they presented Łódź as a inspiration for that. At least they acknowledged that this is not their project but "they are working with SPOŁECZNICY (XD)" without giving a name of a coalition which proposed that project obviously.  

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

In the interests of levity, it turns out that PiS won't be running candidates for Slupsk County Council (not to be confused with Slupsk city council), and Jaslo city council (in the south). They will also have candidates in only two out of the four wards of Przemysl city council (also down south). Jaslo is particularly embarrassing as they currently have a majority there. Apparently in all three instances the Electoral Commission invalidated some of the signatures on their nomination papers. I am, of course, certain that the collection process was conducted in an entirely above-board manner.

hahahahahahahahahahaha

And apparently Korwin failed to collect signatures to start in Warsaw mayoral elections.

As for the other news today there was a huge (as for the Polish standards) manifestation of trade unions. Main issues which were highlighted during the protest were low and frozen salaries in public sector, low minimal wages and support for progressive taxation, retirement age based on years of work and few other things. They got a lot of support from other European trade union and I must say this was a most impressive trade unions action since a few years. Unfortunately this will do nothing to maybe will somehow help SLD before the elections although most of the problems which were mentioned by unions are not really in local politics sphere of influence. But there are also teachers who are protesting against effects of PiS education reform and also nurses are protesting for a few months now in few places and both education and health care are to some extend important for local government and local government actually have something to do with that spheres. Generally PiS is lucky that unions other than Solidarity generally can't do sh**t now in Poland because there are many more sectors and professions which are already or planning protests - including police and border guards.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Where did you hear about the Korwin thing? It wouldn't surprise me because his party is an absolute dumpster fire at the moment (and people are leaking like crazy onto Facebook, lmao) but I can't find anything about it.

Well, PKW website do not show him while Tanajno and "count" Potocki were able to register themselves. And as far as I know deadline was at the beginning of this week.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Polish State Electoral Commission announced numbers which will be assigned to the electoral lists in Sejmiks elections which managed to register themselves in the whole country. This year we have ten such lists, mainly representing big parties. Few years ago everyone would sell their families to get number one as previously ballot had a form of a booklet. Such form benefits first committee as they are on the first page and some disoriented or lazy voters might vote just vote on them because they are first. PiS was hardly forcing the narration that thanks to being number 1 last elections PSL got good result in local elections so they decided to change the form of ballot from booklet to just one big sheet of paper. Committees which managed to register themselves in the whole country:

List no 1 - KWW Bezpartyjni Samorządowcy (non-partisan committee of local politicians, some mayors and various people who generally are gathered around of non-partisan local government, but they are rather centre-right)
List no 2 - KW Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (beloved, wholesome PSL)
List no 3 - KW Partia Zieloni (Greens surprisingly managed to to well though)
List no 4 - KKW Platforma .Nowoczesna Koalicja Obywatelska (PO + N list)
List no 5 - KKW SLD Lewica Razem (SLD and various political plankton organisations)
List no 6 - KW Partii Razem
List no 7 - KW Ruch Narodowy RP
List no 8 - KWW Kukiz'15
List no 9 - KWW Wolność w Samorządzie (Korwin)
List no 10 - KW Prawo i Sprawiedliwość

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-politics-warsaw-insight/in-warsaws-local-election-europes-identity-crisis-plays-out-idUSKCN1M80O2

In spite of the obnoxious 'POPULISM ON THE MARCH' framing, that article is still the best English-language introduction to the Warsaw campaign I've seen so far.

WHY THEY IGNORE IKONOWICZ?!??!?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-gayrights/gay-couple-can-register-child-in-conservative-poland-court-idUSKCN1ML1OQ

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I like how Reuters had info about that and only few Polish media outlet informed about that so far, one being website of Radio Maryja. 

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-gayrights/gay-couple-can-register-child-in-conservative-poland-court-idUSKCN1ML1OQ

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I like how Reuters had info about that and only few Polish media outlet informed about that so far, one being website of Radio Maryja.  

The Polish media just don't want to support fascism. After all, if the PO mayor of Lublin is to be believed, a peaceful Pride parade and a nationalist counter-demonstration being organised by people who have expressed their desire to use violence against the Pride marchers are equally dangerous and both must be banned in the interests of public order. Why are you such a symetrysta?

How can we post on Atlas when the constitution is ignored

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Social services workers today organised manifestation (while I am writing this post manifestation is still on) in Warsaw which is culmination of few months of protests on local scale. Their main goals are higher salaries which are pretty low while recently due to some social programs of PiS they got much more work to do. Their disposable earnings are comparable to level of cashier in grocery store which in Poland is usually considered as low salary level. Other thing they want is improvement of dialogue with government as social services workers trade unions got recently pretty bad relations with Labour Ministry and minister, lets say, was not really happy with those protests. Very feminized protest though, what is not surprising but for foreigner might be interesting aspect. 

https://www.facebook.com/federacja.socjalnych/videos/2118509408398818/

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Warsaw debate was a total circus, I do not even want to make some summary for you there.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

TOMORROW

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Today.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Turnout 12.00 AM CEST

2018: 15.6%
2014: 14.6%

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

The time-honoured Polish tradition of people 'leaking' supposed exit poll results thinly disguised as prices of fruit and vegetables onto the twatters under #bazarek (market) has started in earnest.

Quite a few of them seem to be ramping good results for PO+.N, but it's never clear who there is actually leaking and who is just making stuff up.

Ummm, but this Sunday is Sunday with ban on trade :thinking:

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

So these are both local and voivodship elections. Which ones are the most important?

The locals are probably seen as more relevant but the voivodeship assemblies are, among others, in charge of allocating money from the EU structural funds, which has obvious implications for electoral politics (which is why winning majorities in as many of the assemblies/sejmiks as possible is so important to PiS). So I'd say the voivodeships.

Yeah, but local are probably closer to people as they usually 1) know who is mayor/president/wójt and most often do not know members of voivodship sejmiks 2) spheres of competencies of powiat/gmina level government are easier to understand and to experience for citizens - schools, health care, local infrastructure and transport etc.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

What different turnout patterns are these? Lower turnout among PiS supporters than among .N/PO supporters, PiS supporters voting for PSL/locals in local/voivodship elections, both...?

PSL and local committees tend to do better in the lower level elections. On gmina and county level politics are generally less partisan. Other thing that often candidates which are members of the political party prefer to participate in elections as local electoral committee, often they have some conflict with their party etc. Voivodship sejmiks elections are the most partisan of local elections but still in most of the voivodships local committees are able to get some elected members like Germans in Opolskie and Silesian regionalists in Upper Silesia. Also on that level PSL is still stronger compared to parliamentary elections. Generally big cities tend to ignore those elections thanks to what parties and electoral committees which are strong in rural areas (PSL, Opole Germans) generally have better results than in parliamentary elections.


Example: in 2010 local elections PSL got 21,53% of votes in Podkarpackie voidvodship which is PiS stronghold. In 2011 parliamentary elections in two electoral districts to which voivodship is divided PSL got 9% and 6% of votes. In next local elections, in 2014, they got in the same voivodship 24,39% of votes.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Turnout 12:00 as for the voivodships.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Pollster Marcin Palade (who seemed to have accurate leaks in 2015) just tweeted PiS 35 PO+.N 23 PSL 16 Independent Self-government lists 7, Kukiz 6, SLD 5.

I assume this would be a very good result for PiS? What caused them to win by so much in 2015, and how have they managed to remain relatively popular ever since? To me as an outsider it's almost as if Poland has turned into another country compared to the times of PO rule, but I'm obviously aware that the information I receive is biased and limited.

With such result I guess they might have majority in 5-6 voivodships so this is progress compared to 2014. So good result, but this is not slamming victory. Poor result for SLD, even worse than in 2014. So they might get no sejmik members at all. Same with Kukiz which was usually considered as coalition candidate for PiS in many voivodships. Everything depends on how votes on POPSL and PiS will be distributed among the particular electoral districts in particular voivodships.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Turnout at 17, locally distributed

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Exit poll for sejmiks:

PiS: 32,3%
KO: 24,7%
PSL: 16,6%
BS: 6,3%
Kukiz’15: 6,3%
SLD: 5,7%

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Exit poll says PiS takes 10 out of 16 voivodeship Sejmiks. PO/N takes the rest.

Although it surely won't be in government in all 10 of them because of lack of coalition partners. A better question is - in which voivodeships PO+N+PSL+SLD don't have a majority?

Podkarpackie, Świętokrzyskie and Lubelskie for sure.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

So, in conclusion:

- PiS gets to claim victory because they've managed the biggest local election victory since 1998.
- PO+.N get to claim victory because they'll almost certainly keep all their high-profile mayoralties and may be able to keep PiS out of power in many voivodeships.
- PSL gets to claim victory because their  vote held up stunningly well considering their 2015 collapse and PiS hauling out the big guns against them this time round.
- Kukiz gets to claim victory because he didn't completely flop and has instead proved that he has at least some grassroots presence.
- Robert Biedroń gets to claim victory because he probably got his anointed successor elected in the first round in Słupsk and because SLD, Razem, and the Greens all flopped in this election he gets to step in as the centre-left saviour who will fix everything. (I suspect Razem will crawl under his wing entirely soon, and if they don't a lot of their members will. The Greens will be drunk off their 1% and flop hilariously next year.)
- Korwin can't claim victory. And honestly, nobody really cares.

I would say 1% for Greens, if also present in real results is also great victory. And for PSL such result is only similar to that from 2010 so they defended status quo without the booklet formed ballots and they proven they still can get decent result contrary to what all those people talking about fraud were saying.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Are there any results from individual voivodeships?

Ask again in Wednesday.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I am too lazy to write about some crazy stuff but for example in my voivodship PiS candidate was the only candidate running in the mayoral elections. What is so crazy about that? She lost. Almost 70% of voters voted against her, because voting was in form for/against.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Probably final turnout data, county level. Pretty stable pattern, nothing new.