Remix News

Tag: Polish general election

  • Poland: Left-liberal opposition may not accept the election results if they lose

    Poland: Left-liberal opposition may not accept the election results if they lose

    The vast majority of people have already decided how they will vote. We still do not know the result of the election, but its outcome is already decided. On Sunday night, all will be revealed. 

    All we need now is for the losers of this election to swallow the verdict of the nation. It won’t be easy for them, but it is in the national interest for whoever loses the election to accept the verdict of the people. 

    However, the fashion these days is for the losers to start arguing the election was unfair and that they did not really lose it. In Poland, we have avoided such unpleasantries and may that long continue. 

    For the ruling Law and Justice (PiS), it is simple.

    If they lose, they have to give up power — as they did without any problem back in 2007. For them, the verdict of the people is the key, as they do not believe that judges and the media are more important than voters. For PiS, democracy is about the will of the people and governments honoring their electoral mandates rather than a process by which the establishment takes the decision in courtrooms, lobbies, or boardrooms of international organizations such as the EU.

    PiS has been slandered as being authoritarian, but in fact, it is a highly democratic party in the sense that it fully accepts the will of the people. It will play the parliamentary game of attempting to build a majority should it fall short of having the majority it seeks, but it will also accept the tyranny of electoral arithmetic if forming a government becomes impossible.  

    I’m more concerned about the state of mind of the opposition led by Donald Tusk.

    It calls itself “democratic,” but it treats democracy as just a slogan. The problem with it is its level of frustration that has built up over eight years, in which it has refused to accept the reasons why it lost power in 2015 and learn the lessons. They still do not accept the legitimacy of PiS as a government, even if they accept that it is in office. 

    In the last eight years, these people have created their own bubble in which Kaczyński, Prime Minister Morawiecki and President Duda are the worst thing that has happened to Poland for decades. How could voters possibly vote for such “evils”?

    Bearing that in mind, my concern is that the opponents of PiS will not accept the result and will claim that the results were falsified, voters were manipulated, and that there is a need for mass demonstrations and for international organizations to take action.

    I hope this does not occur, but I cannot rule out this possibility. 

  • Poland votes: Will conservative PiS secure the 42%-43% votes needed for independent rule?

    Poland votes: Will conservative PiS secure the 42%-43% votes needed for independent rule?

    Following Szymon Hołownia’s appearance in Monday’s pre-election debate on TVP, the Third Way’s ratings began to rise and stabilize a few percentage points above the electoral threshold for coalitions (8 percent).

    As revealed by the Wirtualna Polska news outlet on Thursday, even in internal polls commissioned by the PiS election team, support for the Third Way, which is the alliance of Hołownia’s Poland 2050 party and the Polish People’s Party, is increasing.

    “I can confirm they’ve had a surge, they’re above the threshold. They’re gaining at the expense of the Civic Coalition (KO),” said a member of PiS, as quoted by Wirtualna Polska.

    “We remain cautiously optimistic. Nothing is decided yet. Our research shows that to maintain a majority in the Sejm, we need 42%-43% of the votes. It’s achievable,” said a PiS representative.

    “Realistically, we could have 220 seats and ‘patch together’ a majority [230],” he added.

    At the end of the campaign, however, PiS politicians are experiencing significant blunders.

    During one of the meetings with voters, former prime minister and current MEP Beata Szydło encouraged voting for the Law and Justice party in a manner that evoked criticism.

    “This week we’re going from neighbor to neighbor. We go, we explain, we arrange for coffee, we ask, ‘Who are you voting for?’ And if someone says, ‘I don’t know, I don’t like what they’re saying,’ we ask, ‘How’s life? It’s good, right? So vote, what’s the harm? It’s only four years, so try it for these four years. Close your eyes, grit your teeth if you have to, and vote for Law and Justice,” the politician said.

    Clips from Szydło’s speech have flooded social media.

    “I don’t know if it was stupidity, fatigue, or something else,” commented one of the creators of the PiS election campaign while speaking with Wirtualna Polska.

    “Beata didn’t help,” he emphasized.