Polish Politics and Elections

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What's the deal with Barbara Nowacka's Polish Initiative? Why didn't they join the SLD-Razem-Wiosna alliance?

Because they thought that deal with PO will give them more MPs. And she generally broke with the rest of the left long time ago so this wasn't even a question.

Which was likely why the Greens (or rather those who remained there) stuck with KO.

IPL is essentially socially liberal version of PO/.N.

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PiS projected to lose majority in the Senate.

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As far as the legislative process is concerned, the Senate is usually pretty inconsequential. It can propose amendments, which Sejm is free to ignore and send its version to the President for a signature or veto. Individual Senators can't propose bills, but "the Senate as a whole" can. Since 1993 until now government always enjoyed a considerable majority in the "upper" house (for example, in 2001 SLD/UP won 75 out of 100 seats), making it a rubber stamp body, which was being especially evident during the 2015-2019 term.

But now opposition-controlled Senate may actually do its intended duty as a scrutinizing chamber. Such an arrangement could make it much more difficult for PiS to simply steamroll legislations in the middle of the night (oh yes, they love nightime sessions).

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Preliminary breakdown of Senate seats:

PiS: 48
KO: 43
PSL: 3
SLD: 2
Independents: 4


It's been reported Schetyna wants to propose Bogdan Borusewicz (previous Marshal of the Senate from 2005 to 2010) for his old position again.

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Official 100% for Sejm according to PKW

PSL: 30
PiS: 235
SLD: 49
Konfederacja: 11
KO: 134
MN: 1

So PiS managed to win a majority with only 44% despite all the significant parties clearing the threshold. D'Hondt never disappoints.

"Victor d'Hondt: try explaining to him 42% is not a majority"


Serious answer: in 2015 PiS won exactly the same number of seats with only 37.58%. The fact both ZL and whatever party Korwin was leading back then (I lost track at this point) didn't clear 8% and 5% thresholds respectively helped them. Now every nationwide committee cleared the threshold... which is why, for the first time in my life, I'm not disappointed PSL managed to survive yet another election

Shortly before the 2001 election, when SLD/UP was all but certain to trump all other parties, the outgoing Sejm quickly passed switching from d'Hondt to Sainte-Laguë, which deprived SLD from winning a majority.

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Should Czykwin be counted as a "Belarussian minority MP", since he was elected from KO, as opposed to being elected from a minority committee like Galla?

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Well, this was part of ethnically German Silesia which was closest one to the historical ethnic border with ethnically Polish Silesia, so most of the Germans there were more prepared to stay (some of them married Polish people, some of them were able to hide German roots, rural population had greater incentives to stay as they had land etc.) in the state which until ca. 1980s tried to polonize everything. Generally there were two places where Germans stayed in Poland after 1945 in some significant groups - region of Opole (and to some extend western part of Silesian voivodship) and region of Wałbrzych where German miners were crucial for coal mining after the war. Those two groups stayed, but until today we have only Upper Silesian group. The rest generally left Poland to live in Germany.

The Upper Silesian Germans have quite an interesting history - one of those odd little border country minority groups that are the result of existence of the border. Didn't have a particularly good relationship with nationalists or the state before 1945 either, which was presumably a factor in staying on afterwards.

It's quite a fascinating region for a number of reasons. The Upper Silesia (by which I define the Upper Silesian and Opole Voivodeship) became one of the main destination for repatriated people from the former "eastern borderlands" (Kresy). Some say, half-jokingly, that Lwów simply "moved" to Wrocław. In other words displaced people from the east filled the void left by displaced Germans in the west, which was pretty handy for the government, as served to quickly polonize the land.

Postwar demographic shifts were not limited to Germans or Poles from Kresy. A substantial number of remaining Ukrainians, living east of Rzeszów and Lublin, were forcibly resettled to the "recovered lands" in result of "Operation Vistula". The goal was to pacify the UPA insurgents still active there. To add even more shame to this unpleasant chapter, many Lemkos were removed as well, after they were classified as "Ukrainians".

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Places where Konfederacja had higher support are pretty weirdly spread over the map.

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Extremely important news, everyone!

A so-called "Towarzysztwo Patriotyczne" (basically a "Patriotic Association"), that I've never heard of before, filled a formal motion before the Supreme Court to nullify electoral result of SLD. The motion is motivated primarily by them "defending the achievements of the Red Army".

What a twist.

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Extremely important news, everyone!

A so-called "Towarzysztwo Patriotyczne" (basically a "Patriotic Association"), that I've never heard of before, filled a formal motion before the Supreme Court to nullify electoral result of SLD. The motion is motivated primarily by them "defending the achievements of the Red Army".

What a twist.

To be honest similar attempts are not rare, as far as I remember earlier this year some "patriots" wanted to delegalizacje SLD because <something>.

I believe it was something something General Berling this time.

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Here's a little thing that's been bothering me. Let's say the election is postponed without Duda's term being extended (which, I think, would require a constitutional act of some sort). I assume his terms ends in August and we'll have Sejm Marshal acting as President until the election is held on a later date?

I doubt a presidential term can be extended by a simple legislation, but I may be wrong.

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Officially called for 28 June.

Clownfiesta.

I am but one person, but one thing this has absolutely ensured is that I will take great pleasure in voting for Trzaskowski in the second round.

I honestly wonder whether to vote Trzaskowski in the first round already (Biedroń being a huge dud) to give him stronger position. There's just no one in the Polish political scene I held in bigger contempt than The Pen (Duda's been called that because he's signing everything his party tells him to sign).

Back in 2015 I casted a spoiled ballot in the first round (actually wrote in Grodzka on the paper, but we don't allow write-ins to be counted), since there was no candidate I could even remotely identify with. With hindsight I would've voted Komorowski at the start.

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I can't help but to be reminded of Biedroń being interviewed on the EP election night, acting like an overexcited 11-year old after coming third in a spelling bee. That was the moment I thought to myself "he's not going to make it." And by "make it" I didn't mean actually winning the election, since I've been always certain a left's candidate can't win this election, but making a respectable performance.

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It's pretty good given Trzaskowski entered very late as a replacement candidate for Kidawa (a complete failure). PiS and Duda made some mistakes during the campaign (including the infamous "LGBT ideology" comments), and this coupled with the government's mishandling of the pandemic (it's a f**king mess) makes them vulnerable.

Of course Duda can still very much win, but a couple of months ago his reelection seemed almost a foregone conclusion, so I'm moderately hopeful.

This was the first time I voted for a PO candidate in the first round. In 2010 I voted for Napieralski and in 2015 I cast a blank ballot*, before voting for Komorowski in the runoff on both occasions. This year my utter contemp for the Pencil Man, combined with the utter failure of Biedroń's campaign, convinced me it'd be better to help Traskowski get stronger position before the next round.

* Technically wrote in Anna Grodzka, but it still counted as invalid

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So a slight sign that the Orbanisation of Poland might not be unstoppable?

Well, PiS never had as much power as Orban to begin with. Their majority is a slender and precarious one, as evident when Gowin and his boys killed the idea of mail voting PiS was pushing for in order not to lose their previous momentum when the virus hit (PiS' parliamentary caucus is not technically one party, but a coalition, with the tiny parties, one led by Gowin and the other by Ziobro, sitting together with PiS itself, as they ran on the latter's ticket, but remain more or less distinct formations). And PiS never had such levels of public support as Fidesz.

Plus, they don't control the Senate, which is barely in the opposition's hands. The Senate powers are pretty weak ones. It can't kill the legislations voted by Sejm, only to propose amendments which Sejm can then reject and send their version to the Pencil Man. But it still can delay things and has some exclusive prerogatives, like appointing some members of various governmental institutions or approving the President's proposal to hold a referendum.

I mean, I don't want to sound too confident, but I'm pretty happy with PiS not being able to completely do as they please, like Orban can.

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Would be interesting to see a map. I assume there is a major east/west divide.

Based on the IPSOS exit poll:




From Gazeta.pl

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We have a second round poll (conducted on Friday, the last day before the "electoral silence", so it doesn't take actual results into account):

Trzaskowski: 48,1%
Duda: 45,6%
Undecided: 6,1%

Source.

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Turnout (based on IPSOS exit poll):

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https://wybory.gov.pl/prezydent20200628/pl/wyniki/pl


Almost all results in. Pretty fast, I am surprised.

It's always funny to see candidates who managed to collect 100,000 signatures required to be on the ballot ending up with a negligible number of votes.

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It's the lowest (percentage wise) point for the main left-wing candidate in history of direct elections.

1990: Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (SdRP): 9.2%
1995: Aleksander Kwaśniewski (SLD): 35.1 (1st round), 51.7 (2nd round)
2000: Aleksander Kwaśniewski (SLD): 53.9%
2005: Marek Borowski (SDPL): 10.3%
2010: Grzegorz Napieralski (SLD): 13.68%
2015: Magdalena Ogórek (SLD): 2.38%
2020: Robert Biedroń (Left): 2.21%

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So, from the pathetic showing we’ve seen so far, is Biedroń’s career at national politics over?

It's really seems that at some point Biedroń and the Left simply stopped caring, and a lot of Left's voters, myself including, decided it'd be better to vote Trzaskowski in the first round already (I wouldn't have voted for Kidawa, unless there was a runoff).

WKK's situation is interesting, given he was riding high before the May election was canceled, even beating Duda in some hypothetical second round polls. While his result is PSL's best presidential since 2006 (when Jarosław Kalinowski got 6%, which was considered a huge success, given 5% is a threshold in Sejm elections), it's still very disappointing. His position as party leader doesn't seem to be in jeopardy, though.  

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By the way, this year's #bazarek (supposed leaked exit polls disguised as market prices) really sucked.

Duda was, predictably, mostly denoted as "Budyń" (pudding, reflecting his insipidness), or the "Pencil" (because he's signing everything Kaczyński tells him to sign). Trzaskowski was "Dżem" (jam, don't really know why).

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By the way, this year's #bazarek (supposed leaked exit polls disguised as market prices) really sucked.

As soon as I noticed that 'lewitujacy umysl' prick getting big numbers for obvious disinformation I decided to just completely ignore anyone who wasn't Palade. I think in so far as anyone other than him on Twitter actually has access to legitimate exit polls before they're made public, they're all on locked accounts these days.

Did Palade release something? All I saw were tweets like "Palade is asleep", but then I stopped checking twitter altogether and took a nap.

Mostly numbers pulled out of somebody's ass or "educated guesses" like "Teleexpress anchor doesn't look too happy".

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So, from the pathetic showing we’ve seen so far, is Biedroń’s career at national politics over?

It's really seems that at some point Biedroń and the Left simply stopped caring, and a lot of Left's voters, myself including, decided it'd be better to vote Trzaskowski in the first round already (I wouldn't have voted for Kidawa, unless there was a runoff).

Not to mention that Left three times changed person responsible for the campaign and SLD was not really interested in investing their own money and time into Biedroń.

And again, big shout out to Hanna Gill-Piątek, who kept trying to do things like organise rallies in the middle of the work day or hold press conferences out east on Sunday mornings while refusing to communicate with anyone on the ground.

The Left clearly struggles with "working on the ground". Even Razem, for all the hype, seems to be content to just have a few MPs, elected on SLD/Wiosna backs, and enjoy the "high life" of being "muh parliamentary party".

I mean, what else to expect? For years the left side was monopolized by SLD, which had a powerful machine, was able to win elections, but it was mostly designated to keep the post-PZPR crowd relevant (kind of similar to PSL, long dominated by ex-ZSL types, but with much more smaller support post-1997 collapse).

Other left wing parties simply lacked a room, as evident with left-wingers coming from the opposition background that were either pushed aside (leaving politics altogether like Modzelewski or sticking on the fringes), sucked it and tried to make the best of the situation (like Jacek Kuroń, remaining with UD, then UW), or ended up in SLD client parties (UP, PPS before that). Some, like Celiński, just joined SLD. Yes, that's an interesting historical paradox, that the Solidarity (and KOR before that) started with strong left-wing economic goals and had a sizable wing identifying with the leftist philosophy, but so-called "post-solidarity" parties were decisively dominated by the right.

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It's always funny to see candidates who managed to collect 100,000 signatures required to be on the ballot ending up with a negligible number of votes.

But how do they manage to collect so many signatures? Paying money for them? Getting help from a bigger party (in Serbia it's often alleged that the dominant party SNS collects signatures for smaller allied and/or spoiler parties)?

I don't really know. Never looked into this.

It happens every election (save for 1990). In 1995 three candidates received less than 100k. Four in 2000. Five in 2005. Two in 2010 and three in 2015.