Polish Politics and Elections

[Oryxslayer]

OGB ExitPoll:
PiS - 33,5%
KO - 31,4%
Third Way - 13,9%
Left - 9,8%
Konfederacja - 7,7%

Is that some sort of update that takes into consideration the real results that we now have?

Well, here's ipsos's updated poll accounting for the tabulated votes:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1713903473501041021?t=sSDqmIc0FfgA-MCpC9...

So they are standing by their initial prediction, still the strong opposition majority.  

[Oryxslayer]

Poznán gives 44% to KO, do they do better anywhere else?

But nationally the coalition doesn't look like it'll make it past 30. For a moment it looked promising.

Lower down we got the outcome for Częstochowa, is there a running tally of seats somewhere? I don't see one on Wybory.pl

So they aren't going to be able to form a government?

No, they almost certainly are. "The coalition" in this context is the list that Tusk is leading, not the whole broad opposition front with the agrarian and leftist lists.

Therefore the 3 party coalition Tusk is leading will be able to form a government? Im confused.

Every one of the 5(or 6) "lists" that will be winning seats is a banket organization for many smaller parties, but usually with one big name in control of the minors. TD has PSL, KO has PO, etc. So while we can say there are many more than three parties, the three lists of the Liberal opposition have agreed to work in a united government.

[Oryxslayer]

If anyone cares, i went through the Senate seats to see who is presently leading. The opposition alliance, which in the FPTP Senate is officially aligned to prevent vote loss, is leading in a whopping 62 or 63 of 100 seats right now. Some surprises include:

#13 Toruń III, aka the Southeast corner of the Voivodeship. Left leading by a lot in a Duda-won seat, clear spoiler effect from Confederation.

#18 Chełm II, previously a uber-safe PiS seat flipping to an Independent by 3%. There is no Opposition candidate, so the independent is anti-PiS right? If I am wrong, the total is 62, if right, 63.

#38 Płock I: currently a 60 vote PiS lead over Third Way.

#51 Opole I: 6% lead for PO in a seat lost by 10% for the Alliance's Left candidate left time. Suprising since this seat is seemingly captures all the PiS areas in Opole, to the point of a Duda win in 2020.

#60 Białystok II: The city and Belarus border. Giving a huge 12% margin to Third Way. Previously won by 7% for PiS.

[Oryxslayer]

If anyone cares, i went through the Senate seats to see who is presently leading. The opposition alliance, which in the FPTP Senate is officially aligned to prevent vote loss, is leading in a whopping 62 or 63 of 100 seats right now. Some surprises include:

#13 Toruń III, aka the Southeast corner of the Voivodeship. Left leading by a lot in a Duda-won seat, clear spoiler effect from Confederation.

#18 Chełm II, previously a uber-safe PiS seat flipping to an Independent by 3%. There is no Opposition candidate, so the independent is anti-PiS right? If I am wrong, the total is 62, if right, 63.

#38 Płock I: currently a 60 vote PiS lead over Third Way.

#51 Opole I: 6% lead for PO in a seat lost by 10% for the Alliance's Left candidate left time. Suprising since this seat is seemingly captures all the PiS areas in Opole, to the point of a Duda win in 2020.

#60 Białystok II: The city and Belarus border. Giving a huge 12% margin to Third Way. Previously won by 7% for PiS.

Quoting this cause #38 is now a TD/Third Way lead of 538 votes.

[Oryxslayer]

How much has the opposition expanded their majority in the Senate?

The only PiS Senator from Lower Silesia will be Aleksander Szwed from 5th constituency, who won by only 508 votes.
Opposition is going to net gain low teens of Senate seats.

I think its close to 65-35 right now based on changes since I last went through every seat, though thats just a estimate. Though, as noted, the senate is mostly just there to act like the UK Lords.

[Oryxslayer]

Consituency no. 25 (Gdańsk) fully reported
KO - 41.70% (+0.39) 257,009
PiS - 25.20% (-6.90) 155,318
Third Way - 14.70% (+8.80) 90,599
Left - 9.41% (-4.06) 57,967
Konfederacja - 6.23% (-0.98) 38,406


Seats
KO - 6
PiS - 3 (-1)
Third Way - 2 (+2)
Left - 1
Konfederacja - 0


https://wybory.gov.pl/sejmsenat2023/en/sejm/wynik/okr/25

TD got allocated a seat that Konfederacja won in 2019. I consider that impressive given they were starting from nothing in an urban area, and you would think Konfederacja would be able to hold the handful of seats they won last time.

[Oryxslayer]

Seats
(...)

https://wybory.gov.pl/sejmsenat2023/en/sejm/wynik/okr/13

Before the night is out, how did you convert vote numbers to seats so fast? It's not explicitly on the website.

I mean if the vote totals are final, its not hard to run a formula in your favorite stats program, including excel, when it comes to D'Hondt. It's just Votes for a Party/(Seats Allocated to A Party so far, plus 1), until you run out of seats to allocate.

Each seat in a constituency is basically FPTP, so you start with the final results for Seat 1, then you add 1 to the "seats allocated" spot for the party who got Seat 1. That parties vote total should now be divided by 2, the rest by just 1 and remain the same as before. Then again see who is the largest party now, and they win Seat 2. And so it goes until you have no more seats left to allocate.

[Oryxslayer]

Going through the senate districts again, I think things currently stand at:

Opposition Senate Pact - 65 (+14)
 - PO: 41 (-2)
 - Third Way: 11 (+8)
 - Left: 9 (+7)
 - Indies with the Senate Pact Label: 4 (+1)

PiS+: 34 (-15)

Other Independents: 1 (+1) (district 18, where Józef Zajac won against PiS. He Lacks the Senate Pact label, but there is no other Senate Pact candidate in the seat)


Note: PO didn't actually lose seats compared to 2019 electorally. They only made gains. Rather, many seats PO won in 2019 were allocated to their pact partners, some safe, some closer.

[Oryxslayer]

so why did Lewica do so bad compared to 2019? Voters coalescing behind KO to try and kick PiS out better?

Exit polls provided data that generally yes - more than 1/4 of previous electorate voted for PO. But we must also remember that in 2019 leader of PO was Grzegorz Schetyna. PO is now a little bit more liberal in terms of topics like abortion etc. - and we must remember that Left electorate is left wing only in terms of such issues, not really economically - so for them switching to the PO is not really that difficult. Other thing is turnout - more voters, but those new voters were not really charmed by the Left.

Something else we should perhaps consider is the surge for TD/Third Way/2050 in cities. They previously had mostly the Rural/Agrarian base of PSL in 2019. The new ticket being a partnership with Hołownia and his Green approach provides the urban "activist" type an alternative ticket to just Lewica.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/broderly/status/1713950624377655313?s=20

He has almost twice as many votes as party leader Włodzimierz Czarzasty, who carpetbagged to that constituency. Constituency no. 32 is problably the most leftist one in Poland, so Left won 2 seats, but there was chance that leader of Left would not win reelection.

TFW you get put at the bottom of your party's list and get more votes than the guy at the top.

[Oryxslayer]

There will probably be plenty detailed maps that will come out soon, but here's just  quick rough one of the Opposition/Liberal/Reformist 3-Party coalition compared to PiS and their intended partner of Konfederacja, if the two got a majority. There remain 35 precincts not yet tabulated, so the overall margin may widen. But the map shouldn't change cause they are either from abroad or from around Warsaw.



When looking at the results from just this two-block perspective, it is a margin close to 56-44 when removing the minor parties. That's fairly massive, but it is only really translated into the Senate landslide where the three tickets actually all are one. In the Sejm, divisions, wasted votes, and D'Hondt allocations make things a lot tighter than the topline.



And here's just a straight map of the Sejm constituencies won by the PO ticket and PiS.

[Oryxslayer]

So Tusk is now certain to become PM again? The 3 parties aiming to oust PiS obatin 54% of seats now, which is an insurmountable advantage.

Kind of ironic that this would be the 2nd time Tusk ended the PiS reign, he already did so in 2007 when Kacysnki himself was his predecessor as PM.

There is the chance that the PiS president ends up calling for new elections after first giving PiS the mandate for government (which would fail), but I think such an election would only reinforce the opposition’s position as they could easily hammer on PiS not willing to listen to the 53-54% that disagree with them and instead calling a costly new election.

Israel shows that doing this doesn't change opinions,  it just hardens the previous loyalties and makes everyone angrier.  You need to give people time, which Bibi sadly benefited from, after letting the shaky opposition into power for a brief window.

[Oryxslayer]

Tusk won't overturn many PiS laws. He doesn't have the 3/5 majority to override a presidental Veto. Tusk will spend most of his time purging the PiS patronage network and trying to unfreeze the EU recovery billion.

Until 2025, there will be divided government yes. But that just begs the question, who does the coalition run as their candidate (a formal coalition should nominate just a solitary individual) to to try and replicate this win for them?

[Oryxslayer]

I've also read that almost the entire population of present day Wroclaw are descended from Poles from pre-WW2 Lwow which then became Lvov as part of the Soviet Union and is now Lviv in Ukraine. They replaced all the Germans who lived in Wroclaw before WW2 when it was called Breslau

I mean it shouldn't be a shock to anyone in a Polish elections discussion that the wars and subsequent ethnic expulsions/transfers/cleansing broadly created two groups with different experiences, cultural development, material conditions, and identities. That's the broad reason why the old borders of the Kaiser's German Empire show up not just in the electoral map, but on so many other demographic measurements.

[Oryxslayer]

KO, PL2050, PSL and Lewica signed today their coalition agreement, Tusk PM, Kosiniak-Kamysz (PSL) and Gawkowski (Lewica) will be Deputy PM, Hołownia (PL2050) and Czarzasty (Lewica) may turn chairs at the Marshal/Speaker of Sejm (Szymon the first two years), KO gets the Marshal/Speaker of the Senate but will also change in the middle of the term. Lewica party member Razem it's likely to stay in confidence and support rather than join the government.  The complete composition of the cabinet it's still unknown until Morawiecki' encharge fails.

Is there any discussion at all about how the coalition will handle the Presidential contest - aka running alone or together? Cause I have had a theory for a while that Hołownia wants to be the standard bearer of a united front. Him getting a role that rotates out in 2025 doesn't exactly discourage this speculation.

[Oryxslayer]

Szymon Hołownia (leader of PL2050) elected Marshal of Sejm (speaker)

Szymon Hołownia - 266 votes (KO, PL2050, PSL, New Left, Konfederacja)
Elżbieta Witek (incumbent) - 193 votes (PiS)

Why is Konferacja against PiS and also ruling out any potential coalition? They're to the right of PiS, aren't they?

Konferacja is against PiS on principles, but also against the opposition parties for the same reasons. Their brand(s) of far-rightism are like that. But here I guess they are just acting against PiS, cause its a vote on persons,  rather than in favor of any policy in particular.

[Oryxslayer]

With Duda apparently acting as full PiS partisan hack, how likely is it that he just derails the entire agenda of the new govt? Doesn't he have veto power over bills? He could just refuse to resign every law that undoes a major PiS policy. At least until his term ends in 2025, the Tusk Admin could struggle with getting things done?

Divided government is not US exclusive.

Which is why the coalition's policy towards the 2025 contest is so important, at least to me.

[Oryxslayer]

New Left will start negotiations of joint list with KO for local election.
Not surprising, most of sejmik's constituencies have only 5-6 seats so efficient threshold is about 15%.

https://twitter.com/RobertBiedron/status/1748248986576621656?s=20

In the kinda unexpected, but kinda reasonable twist of events KO decided to run in the Sejmiks elections without the New Left. Now New Left have to quickly decide what and how they are going to do, so they are kinda screwed. PO is sure that they will get everything they can without them, and sharing with them safe spots on the electoral lists.

To this end, polling right now has PiS and PO dead even, maybe with PO ahead. This of course is not cause PO has gained ground,  but PiS has lost it, mostly to Holownia's PSL/PL2050 who are seeing a bit of a surge. And Holownia, who is more popular than the parties, is at the moment well poised to run for the presidency (at least according to this poll, I haven't seen others)

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1753056567522435187?t=iZzgoan3-tN5CO-Jnt...

[Oryxslayer]

National polling right now is approximately:

PO+: 30 to 35%
PiS+" 25% to 31%
PSL/PL2050: 11% to 16%
Lewica: 8% to 10%
Konfederacja : 8% to 11%

Obviously the context in local situations is different, but for precisely that reason I'm most interested in the results for Hołownia's allied parties. They have seemingly become more electorally viable since the parliamentary election, and a string of successes through the various contests from now until 2025 will likely position Hołownia as the initial presidential favorite.

[Oryxslayer]

Just to confirm: everything so far is just exits right?

I'm only asking cause there is no data immediately, apparent besides turnout on the National Site which was slow if one recalls last year. However, should I be looking elsewhere either a press page or local sites since this is not a national election?

[Oryxslayer]

Some Voivodeship results. Despite there being 99.xx% of polling stations reporting, the natyional site isn't showing results unless 100% is in. So only a few are done:

Opole, In Silesia:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777279309469646951

Kuyavian-Pomerania, south of Gdansk:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777304238982402247


Lubusz, on the border with Germany:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777318299904139589

Podlaskie, on the border with Belorussia:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777318305377734922

[Oryxslayer]

Podkarpackie, Southeastern corner, one of the PiS's best areas:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777327615419748398

AKA the Katowice urban area:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777327620834607572

Lublin, also a Southeast PiS stronghold, even if the city of of the same name diverges from the rest of the region:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777338883547463896

Lower Silesia, Southwest corner:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777353059426824254

AKA Krakow plus the much more PiS surroundings:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777353065642795271

[Oryxslayer]

This is the Gdansk region:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777378134934860045

Between Katowice and Warsaw, the Lodz region was a battleground target. PiS dominates the areas outside the urban center proper, whereas the governing parties won the urban region in 2023:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777378129637425628

Warmia–Mazury is the bit of the country once a part of East Prussia in the northeast:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777378140278407297

Western interior:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777378145445752879



The three missing from this total are the PiS stronghold of Świętokrzyskie/Holy Cross, the PO stronghold of West Pomerania, and Mazovia - which Warsaw plus her rural hinterlands. Mazovia though did finish recently:

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777399563763974595

Seems like PiS did slightly better than expected but nothing too alarming?

Which means at the end of the day the results nationally for the Voivodship councils are going to be very close to the 2023 result. PiS ahead but not by much, and the combined governing parties with a solid majority over them. That means that overall the government is set to expand it's local allies, with 11/16 councils.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/Gust_2319/status/1777414854095085820

Yep, very close to 2023. One could even say no real changes since the only beneficiaries of vote swings were the multitude of minor tickets that can't really make an effort in a national election. Compared to those results:

PiS+: -1.3%
PO+: -0.1%
PSL/PL2050: -0.2%
Lewica: -2.3%
Konfederacja: No Change

BS (localist group): +1.1%
German Minority Group: +0.3%