Poland's Elections Thread 2015

[Martinus]

So, the Parliamentary elections are this Sunday. The most recent poll shows the following:

36% - Law and Justice (PiS)
22% - Citizens Platform (PO)
11% - United Left (ZL)
6% - Modern (Nowoczesna)
6% - Kukiz 2015
6% - Polish People Party (PSL)
4% - KORWIN

PiS you know - this is the right wing nationalist/Catholic party of the Kaczynskis twins (one of whom died in the plane crash) - they are most like Orban's Fidesz in Hungary.

PO is the current centre-right ruling party (that's centre right by Polish standards - there are way way to the right of Cameron's tories on issues such as abortion, gay marriage etc.).

ZL is a coalition of social-democrats, liberals, socialists and the green, that was formed only recently but is climbing up in polls.

Nowoczesna is a party created by a liberal economist, and has a very liberal (not socialist) outlook - it intends to capitalise on people who voted PO in the past but got disillusioned with them.

Kukiz 2015 is the movement/party started by the rock man who ran as an independent candidate in last presidential elections and came third. Since then he has squandered a lot of his popularity by making a number of odd political choices and entering into a number of strange alliances (he initially allied with neonazis, for example, but then dropped them). He is a populist and presents a weird mix of socialism and nationalism.

PSL represent interests of farmers, mainly, and they are the current junior partner of the ruling coalition.

KORWIN is the party of the racist libertarian guy with a bowtie. 

A party needs to get past 5% and a coalition of parties needs to get past 8% of the national vote to even make it into the lower house of Parliament (irrespective of individual vote) - only United Left is a coalition, all other are parties. The upper house vote is purely "first past the post".

So, it is going to be interesting until the very last day, irrespective of PiS's likely overwhelming victory.

This is because of at least a few reasons:

- a number of parties are close to the entry threshold, which means that a lot of votes can go to waste, depending on the final spread. The vote counting/mandate allocation system is such that the more wasted votes there are, the more the overall winner is benefiting (let me know if this needs explaining);

- assuming the end result is like the one given in the poll (so all but KORWIN have MPs), there will some interesting coalition dynamics going on - for starters, PIS will never form a coalition with PO (and vice versa), and furthermore, KUKIZ 2015 will never form a coalition with PO, and ZL and Nowoczesna will never form a coalition with PiS. It is quite possible that neither PiS + KUKIZ 2015, nor PO+ZL+Nowoczesna will have majority - and each side will need to court PSL. PSL, at the same time, is the only party capable of forming a coalition with both PO and PiS - this is because they are pro-EU (thank you, agricultural subsidies!) and fairly reasonable - but they are also quite conservative. So even if there is a rainbow coalition of PO+ZL+Nowoczesna+PSL, it may be under a considerable strain;

- PO itself has a rather strong conservative wing, and it is seen as much more opportunistic than PiS - so if PiS ends up in power, it is not inconceivable there will be an exodus of conservatives from PO to PiS - and possibly even a total collapse of PO.

[Syt]

Looks like the options are PiS Po

[Martinus]

Looks like the options are PiS Po

[Martinus]

Funnily, some people shorten the United Left ("Zjednoczona Lewica") to "ZLew" which means "sink" (as in, a kitchen appliance, not the act of sinking) in Polish.

[Eddie Teach]

Looks like the options are PiS Po

They may be PO, but they proud.

[Monoriu]

Some crucial information is missing.  Like which party has the lowest tax implications on you. 

[Martinus]

Some crucial information is missing.  Like which party has the lowest tax implications on you.

No practical impact. I am already paying a 19% flat income tax rate thanks to an optimisation structure that is unlikely to be affected by anything they do.

I think some of them are planning to reduce VAT and some to increase it but not by a huge amount.

[Martinus]

So, PiS has clear majority. Time to die.

[The Brain]

Dove?

[alfred russel]

I knew this would happen. When you plant a potato in the ground, new potatoes will grow, and it has been five years since poland planted its big dog potato.

[Tonitrus]

Out of curiosity, what is PiS's stand in terms of relations with Russia?  And was that even a significant factor in the voting?

[Martinus]

They are anti-Russian and not really - on the other hand, their tendency to alienate allies and be completely useless at diplomacy is a concern. And unlike most other parties, they have the same guy calling the shots as 10 years ago.

[Tonitrus]

So this Beata Szydlo I'm reading about is just their Medvedev? 

[Martinus]

So this Beata Szydlo I'm reading about is just their Medvedev? 

Pretty much.

[Ed Anger]

Some crucial information is missing.  Like which party has the lowest tax implications on you.

No practical impact. I am already paying a 19% flat income tax rate thanks to an optimisation structure that is unlikely to be affected by anything they do.

I think some of them are planning to reduce VAT and some to increase it but not by a huge amount.

19%.