Poland runoff: last polls and results

[minionofmidas]

Both candidates sound pretty awful. And the only party close to my views at all in the first round are some ultra-corrupt ex-commies who still supported the Iraq invasion anyway.

No, they didn't take part in the presidentials. An anti-corruption splinter-off from them did, though.

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You can say that again.

[minionofmidas]

Here you go. Quite an interesting map, don't you think?

[minionofmidas]

Here you go. Quite an interesting map, don't you think?

Thank's

The shape of the Tusk districts (or whatever they're called) remind me of something...
Isn't that the part of Poland that used to be in Germany?

Pretty much, yes. (Except in some cases the original borders do not exist anymore.) Really the only exception is that NW-most of Kaxzynski's Voivodships (whatever you call them in English)

[minionofmidas]

Good question.
One possible reason is the great upheavals of 1945. A majority of the people in the parts of Poland that were German until 45 are DPs and their descendants, after all. They might thence be expected to be less traditionalist. However that wouldn't apply to Eastern Upper Silesia (Slask), or to the Poznan area (Wielkopolska), areas that were "German" until 1918 but Polish since.
Another possible reason might be attitudes on Europe, defined in largish part as attitudes on Germany, which might be influenced by the proximity of the border, intensity of contact(, work experience in Germany, ) etc.

[minionofmidas]

Good question.
One possible reason is the great upheavals of 1945. A majority of the people in the parts of Poland that were German until 45 are DPs and their descendants, after all. They might thence be expected to be less traditionalist.

DPs? Is that the same as refugees? Or am I missing something here?

"Displaced Persons". A catch-all for all sorts of refugees in Europe after 1945.
People from Eastern Poland were deported to formerly German areas that had been vacated by either fleeing or deported Germans.

[minionofmidas]

Good question.
One possible reason is the great upheavals of 1945. A majority of the people in the parts of Poland that were German until 45 are DPs and their descendants, after all. They might thence be expected to be less traditionalist. However that wouldn't apply to Eastern Upper Silesia (Slask), or to the Poznan area (Wielkopolska), areas that were "German" until 1918 but Polish since.
Another possible reason might be attitudes on Europe, defined in largish part as attitudes on Germany, which might be influenced by the proximity of the border, intensity of contact(, work experience in Germany, ) etc.

There is another - though, probably, extremely minor - reason. Tusk is a "westerner" himself - in fact, he is a native westerner, not a post-war settler. In fact, I believe, he is not even ethnically Polish, but rather Kashubian - a tiny westernmost Slavic minority, native to the vicinity of Gdansk/Danzig. Kashubians survived unassmilated in the ethnic German environment until the 20th century, though these days they might be more prone to assimilating into the ethnically/linguistically more related Polish environment. I don't think that played a particularly important role, but in the more rural parts of the East this "strangeness" might have added to his lack of appeal.  Again, this is, probably, extremely minor, but worth noting.

Interesting. He's Kashubian - does that mean he's a Protestant, too?
German author (and Nobel Prize winner) Günter Grass is Kashubian too, or maybe half Kashubian, I'm not sure. Of course, his were sort-of-assimilated, city of Danzig folk - and fled or were deported West when he was a teenager.

[minionofmidas]

Tusk won Oswiecim, with 50.7% of the vote. All the other towns in the district (it's the largest one) voted for Kaczynski, as did the province it`s in (Malopolska).

[minionofmidas]

Here you go. Quite an interesting map, don't you think?

Looks like a pre-WWII map.  Were the settlers in the west mainly those displaced from the east, with those in the center staying in place?

Does 'Niemcy' have cognates in other languages?

Yes...although it's a bit more complex as there's probably some people from the East elsewhere too, and there's areas where the original Westerners stayed. (The definitions of "German" and "Pole" were never all that clearcut in parts of Silesia. The Poles and Mazurs of Southern East Prussia also stayed. etc.)
Niemcy = German has cognates all over the Slavic languages. It translates literally as "unable to speak the language; mute". It was also borrowed into Hungarian.

[minionofmidas]

Was there any real leftist candidates in the first round? Pretty crappy that we'd end up with Cosmo Kramer clone vs. DanielX clone which is what I understand them as.

Not quite as bad perhaps.

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Ah, Paulina...never got into her panties...

[minionofmidas]

No, M, that's not your fault.