An Imperial Palimpsest on Poland’s Electoral Map

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Via Strange Maps (http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/)

[Хahar 🤔]

Wow!

Strange that there doesn't seem to be any distinction between the parts in the old Poland and the parts that were added after WWII.

[Hash]

Always noticed that.

[minionofmidas]

Not exactly news of course, but Xahar's question remains as valid as when it was first posed.

[The Mikado]

Prussian Poles are apparently saner than Russian/Austrian ones.

[Matt Damon™]

?

What are the parties?

[Хahar 🤔]

?

What are the parties?

The link has details.

[The Mikado]

?

What are the parties?

The blue are the crazy right wingers, the orange are the mainline conservatives, and the red are the crooked socialists.  Not a very attractive bunch.

[Verily]

?

What are the parties?

PO, "Civic Platform", in English, is in orange. They are generally economically right-wing and pro-Western, and take little stance on social issues. PiS, "Law and Justice", in English, is in blue. They are socially very conservative and generally speaking populist, somewhat leftist and rural-oriented.

LiD, "Left and Democrats", in English, is in red. They are social democrats in the traditional European model. PSL, "Polish People's Party", in English, is in yellow-green. They are socialists who have reformed and might now be closer to Christian democrats in the traditional European model; hard to pin them down. LiD and PSL are less significant but win 8-15% of the vote nationwide.

[Matt Damon™]

It's true that Poland is basically populist/communitarian right?

[Matt Damon™]

They have weird party names. I'd like to know the history behind them.

[Hash]

They have weird party names. I'd like to know the history behind them.

Both PO and PiS are very recent. Both were founded in 2001. LiD was formed as a coalition in 2006, and the four parties in LiD were founded in 1999, 2004, 1992, and 2005 respectively. LiD doesn't exist anymore either, they all went different ways.

PSL, "Polish People's Party", in English, is in yellow-green. They are socialists who have reformed and might now be closer to Christian democrats in the traditional European model;

PSL are agrarians.

[afleitch]

This 2005 Presidential Election map between PO candidate Donald Tusk and PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński shows best where PO and PiS strongholds are located within Poland

Can I just say, it's hard not to mentally superimpose the pre 1918 boundary between Germany and Russia onto that map.

^^^^^^^^

And I would be interested to know more

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A random thought... the appeal of PiS is basically political traditionalism; rural, ultra-Catholic, nationalist, etc. So it does best in rural areas with a settled population, like the old Polish heartlands around the Vistula, but also Galicia (maybe the xenophobic element to PiS has special appeal there as well). PO is basically just (as far as most of its voters are concerned) the anti-PiS. So it does well where a party based on traditional values and tub-thumping nationalism is likely to be less popular; in the cities (and there are more cities in the parts of Poland that used to be part of the Kaiserreich than the rest of the country) and also in areas where the population was largely dumped into after the War after being kicked out of their own homes in the east.
Might be totally wrong.

[afleitch]

A random thought... the appeal of PiS is basically political traditionalism; rural, ultra-Catholic, nationalist, etc. So it does best in rural areas with a settled population, like the old Polish heartlands around the Vistula, but also Galicia (maybe the xenophobic element to PiS has special appeal there as well). PO is basically just (as far as most of its voters are concerned) the anti-PiS. So it does well where a party based on traditional values and tub-thumping nationalism is likely to be less popular; in the cities (and there are more cities in the parts of Poland that used to be part of the Kaiserreich than the rest of the country) and also in areas where the population was largely dumped into after the War after being kicked out of their own homes in the east.
Might be totally wrong.

Come to mention it, the dark blue areas in the south east do correspond roughly to the formerly Austrian Galicia.

There are examples of even more ancient patterns in some French elections IIRC

[Hash]

A random thought... the appeal of PiS is basically political traditionalism; rural, ultra-Catholic, nationalist, etc. So it does best in rural areas with a settled population, like the old Polish heartlands around the Vistula, but also Galicia (maybe the xenophobic element to PiS has special appeal there as well). PO is basically just (as far as most of its voters are concerned) the anti-PiS. So it does well where a party based on traditional values and tub-thumping nationalism is likely to be less popular; in the cities (and there are more cities in the parts of Poland that used to be part of the Kaiserreich than the rest of the country) and also in areas where the population was largely dumped into after the War after being kicked out of their own homes in the east.
Might be totally wrong.

Come to mention it, the dark blue areas in the south east do correspond roughly to the formerly Austrian Galicia.

There are examples of even more ancient patterns in some French elections IIRC

Lozere.