Polish Politics and Elections

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Official date of the elections: 21st October. Second turns probably week after.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The campaign has officially begun, and PO and .N have decided to mark this occasion by putting up a load of billboards saying things like ‘PiS have stolen millions while you can’t afford medicine’ and ‘PiS have stolen millions while there’s still no affordable housing’. This isn’t a bad move, in all honesty - arrogance and nepotism is probably the one line of attack still available to them and at least they’re trying to set the agenda.

Also Schetyna and Lubnauer now suddenly get along really well and keep having long dinner parties together, which means that in five years .N is just going to be a shell party run out of a shed by that really dodgy bloke who tried to run for leader and got shredded for his investment portfolio.

PiS, meanwhile, aren’t doing all that much and seem to be content to let the launch of the new Good Start programme - under which parents of most schoolchildren will receive a sum of money to help pay for school supplies and text books - do the talking for them.

In minor party news, Janusz Korwin-Mikke is threatening to sue literally all the other candidates in the Warsaw mayoral election because they’ve been really blatantly campaigning before the legally permitted date while he claims he stuck to the law and has therefore lost out on potential momentum. Oh and he wants to ban trams from the centre of Warsaw. Because of course he does.

Finally, Razem have announced that one of their flagship policies for the local elections will be free school meals for all children, and that their Opole branch will be running for the city council in coalition with the German Minority, which seems a bit strange given that the Germans down there tend to be more CDU than SPD, but then there’s also been a lot of cooperation between them in opposition to the mayor’s policies.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Finally, Razem have announced that one of their flagship policies for the local elections will be free school meals for all children, and that their Opole branch will be running for the city council in coalition with the German Minority, which seems a bit strange given that the Germans down there tend to be more CDU than SPD, but then there’s also been a lot of cooperation between them in opposition to the mayor’s policies.

Joint protests probably bring people together. But from publicity reasons very bad move.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Finally, Razem have announced that one of their flagship policies for the local elections will be free school meals for all children, and that their Opole branch will be running for the city council in coalition with the German Minority, which seems a bit strange given that the Germans down there tend to be more CDU than SPD, but then there’s also been a lot of cooperation between them in opposition to the mayor’s policies.

Joint protests probably bring people together. But from publicity reasons very bad move.

Wisniewski will happily exploit it - it's not like he and his friend Patryk Jaki don't already have form for anti-German campaigning...

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

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

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

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

Trzaskowski basically stopped campaigning upon discovering his true calling: going around Warsaw and fixing everything with some tape.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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

Trzaskowski basically stopped campaigning upon discovering his true calling: going around Warsaw and fixing everything with some tape.

I can't believe this man was supposed to be PO's last, best hope. He's absolutely hopeless, and Jaki is a soulless ghoul. The fact that either of them are as high in the polls as they are suggests we are doomed as a nation.

[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.  

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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

[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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

If anyone is wondering how PiS is handling electoral success, you need only look to Nowy Sacz in the south, which has been a right-wing stronghold since time immemorial and which is currently one of the few large towns in Poland to have a PiS mayor. As far as I can tell, incumbent mayor Ryszard Nowak, a PiS member, is retiring and was hoping to get the national party to choose his handpicked successor Krzysztof Gluc, former deputy CEO of Nowy Sacz Water, as their candidate for mayor. However, Dear Leader Kaczynski personally intervened to have Iwona Mularczyk, the wife of local MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk, endorsed instead. Iwona Mularczyk is a teacher at a local school and has never taken part in politics before.

Nowak then quit the party and Gluc is running for mayor as an independent with his endorsement. He is, for some reason, working with the former chairman of the local SLD branch.

Two other PiS members, councillor Jerzy Gwizdz and secretary of Nowy Sacz PiS Malgorzata Belska, were also seemingly annoyed by having been passed over for the nomination and have both decided to run as independents.

The result of all this maniacal splintering is that, in a city where PiS won by 30 points in 2015, the candidate of the PO-.N Civic Coalition, Malopolska Assembly member Leszek Zegzda is currently set to top the poll in the first round with just 30% of the vote. In fact, it's not impossible that none of the PiS genepool candidates reach the runoff, because random independent Ludomir Handzel (who lost to Nowak by just 188 votes in 2014) is polling on par with the official PiS candidate. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.



(oh, and yes, that is indeed the SLD candidate polling at 0.7%. God bless Malopolska!)

[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

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

List no 5 - KKW SLD Lewica Razem (SLD and various political plankton organisations)
List no 6 - KW Partii Razem

I predict that this will cause absolutely no problems whatsoever.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[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?!??!?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

lol, Kukiz just threw his candidate for mayor of Warsaw, nationalist beer magnate MP Marek Jakubiak, under the bus. He said at a rally in Kielce that he was aware that Jakubiak had no chance of winning and that privately, his sympathies lay with another candidate. He refused to say which candidate that was other than they were 'on an opposite pole' (ideologically) from Jakubiak, which would probably indicate Spiewak seeing as Kukiz has praised him in the past.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

List no 3 - KW Partia Zieloni (Greens surprisingly managed to to well though)

They didn't even need me to fill in the gap.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

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.

Speaking of Tanajno he's been blantantly plagiarizing the subplot from Kapitan Bomba (średnia hawajska), and it's tragically unfunny when he's doing this. Walaszek should sue his ass.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

List no 3 - KW Partia Zieloni (Greens surprisingly managed to to well though)

They didn't even need me to fill in the gap.

I'm hearing that in a lot of places their lists are literally made up of random people from Facebook. There are entire voivodeships where they have <10 members in total, so I imagine their signatures could be interesting as well.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Two quick updates.

- Krakow is getting interesting. Since 2002, the mayor of Krakow has been Jacek Majchrowski, who was elected as an SLD candidate but immediately became an independent and no longer maintains ties with them. He is also, er, fairly obviously corrupt. This year Majchrowski has been endorsed by PO, SLD and PSL as their 'stop PiS' candidate and is facing possibly his most credible challengers since he took office - Malgorzata Wassermann, a PiS MP who chairs the inquiry into infamous pyramid scheme Amber Gold (which is alleged to have had ties to PO politicians including Donald Tusk himself), and Lukasz Gibala, a liberal former MP for PO and Palikot's Movement. The polling tends to show Majchrowski and Wassermann basically tied in the first round and Gibala in third, some way behind but closing in quite quickly. In the second round Majchrowski would on current numbers beat Wassermann fairly convincingly, but I wonder if that lead would survive an actual campaign given that this race obviously matters to PiS a fair bit so they're trying hard and Krakow has always had a bit more PiS potential than other major Polish cities. Interestingly Gibala could beat either of them, so if he sneaks into the second round things could get interesting.

- Gliwice PO is currently in meltdown. The national party, pushed by local MP, former Justice Minister, and PO 'rising star' Borys Budka, chose to endorse the incumbent independent (but PO genepool) mayor Zygmunt Frankiewicz and run in coalition with him for the city council. A number of local members, including some popular currently sitting councillors and local activists, were opposed to that and wanted to run their own candidate for mayor, but claimed to go along with the decision after it was officially made. They then found themselves removed from the Civic Coalition's lists at the last minute on the grounds that it was thought they might defect after being elected. Cue entirely predictable outrage, which was made worse by the fact that Budka's wife had suddenly appeared as a candidate without anyone in the local party being consulted first. Budka is now facing much criticism, including from his 'mentor', former MP Andrzej Gałażewski, who described him as an apparatchik, a careerist, and 'his own personal political failure' in an interview with a local paper.

[PSOL]

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

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[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.