POLAND locals 2014

[Georg Ebner]

Let us wake up! Yesterday seemingly had not uninteresting local elections in Poland. www.pl.wikipedia.org and www.pkw.pol.pl/pl/ have only TurnOut-Numbers so far.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Damn, I was about to create this thread.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

ComputerProblems caused some CountingDelay during Monday. ExitPolls saw PiS at 31.5 and PO at 27.3, its female PM has already conceded the first defeat for 9 years. (Yet, PO should be able to form far more coalitions than PiS.) SecondRound in 2 weeks.

It ought to be noted that these numbers are only for total popular vote for Voivodeship Sejmiks (roughly equivalents of state legislatures) and, obviously, results varies from Voivodeship to Voivodeship.

Also, these numbers does not include numerous races for mayors and councils on all levels (county, commune, municipal, borough).

The fact, however, is that for the first time in 9 years PiS did came first in something, which is understadalbly vieved as PO's defeat, albeit narrow.

Here are projected numbers:

PiS: 31.5%
PO: 27.3%
PSL: 17%
SLD: 8,8%
KNP: 4.2%

PKW expects full results to be known by early afternoon tomorrow.

I'll write more later.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Oh well, it appears we can't expect results today.

Cayó el sistema! Cayó el sistema!

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

For those surprised at PSL's showing (whooping 17% while they frequently struggle to reach the 5% threshold at national level): that's really nothing unusual to exceed their parliamentary showing (although 17% is above expectations).

PSL is a party of local establishment with a strong network of support (and interests) on county and commune level. Many people may no longer vote for PSL parliamentary and presidential candidates (hell, in the last presidential election, Pawlak got pathetic 1,75%, finishing fifth), but they still love their PSL mayors, wójts, sołtyses and councilmembers.

[Yeahsayyeah]

I love that in Polish the word for mayor is actually Schultheiß. ;-) I did not know that.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

For those surprised at PSL's showing (whooping 17% while they frequently struggle to reach the 5% threshold at national level): that's really nothing unusual to exceed their parliamentary showing (although 17% is above expectations).

PSL is a party of local establishment with a strong network of support (and interests) on county and commune level. Many people may no longer vote for PSL parliamentary and presidential candidates (hell, in the last presidential election, Pawlak got pathetic 1,75%, finishing fifth), but they still love their PSL mayors, wójts, sołtyses and councilmembers.

17% is - as far as i remember - by far their highest share of votes ever, isn't it? Caused by those, who are unpleased by PO and PiS?

Well, no, mainly because PSL has no significant support beside country areas. While there is a discontent due to PO and PiS domination, PSL is not the force to benefit from this, given, among other reasons, they are in coalition with PO.

Lower turnout may be a better explanation. PSL electorate is very dedicated, especially with local elections.

To answer your first question, yes, it's their best result since 1989 (although only 0.5% better than 2010), although not the best result ever, given that PSL is over 100 years old.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

For trivia, there are Sejmiks total popular vote in previous local elections:

2002:

SLD-UP: 24,65%
PO-PiS: 16,02%
Samoobrona: 15,98%
LPR: 14,36%
PSL: 10,81%
AWS remains: 3,44%
KNP-OP and ROB: 2,34%
UW: 2,29%
UPR: 2,27%
PPP: 1,50%
KPEiR: 1,14%
ZChN-ROP-RKN: 1,09%

2006:

PO: 27,18%
PiS: 25,08%
LiD: 14,25%
PSL: 13,24%
Samoobrona: 5,64%
LPR: 4,74%

2010:

PO: 30,89%
PiS: 23,05%
PSL: 16,30%
SLD: 15,20%
ODŚ: 1,64%
KNP: 1,22%
RAŚ: 0,97%
German Minority: 0,40%

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Meanwhile, SLD noted a very disappointing result on Sunday, while, at the same time, having a steady rise in the national polls (as mentioned in my Poland 2015 thread, they had best polling in nine years). Quite a reverse of PSL situation.

SLD local machine, once very strong, is no longer the same.

[Donnie]

Finally I found the final results given by the Polish Federal Election Commission.
6 days after the election!
There where a lot of irregularities and most likely frauds. Especielly on the country side where PSL controls every post in the legislatures (small city majors, city councils, village councils etc.)
For example the exit poll by IPSOS (very accurate in previous years) done on a sample
of ca. 60 000 (margin of error +/- 2.0%) was way off in this election.
Also the number of invalid votes was in record highs 17.93% - wtf?
Anyway here are the certified final results:

Party                          exit poll by IPSOS   final result 2014 (2010)   total votes    seats in Sejmiks

PIS (Law and Justice)            31.5 %               26.85 % (+3.80)      3 238 199              171
PO (Civic Platform)               27.3 %               26.36 % (- 4.53)      3 179 210              179
PSL (Peasant Party)              17.0 %               23.68 % (+7.38 )     2 855 996              157
SLD (Socialdemocratic)          8.8 %                 8.78 % (- 6.42)       1 059 074               28
KNP (Libertarian)                  4.1%                  3.89 % (+2.67)         469 308                --
RN (Nationalist)                    1.7%                  1.57 % (+1.57)         188 767                --
Others                                  9.5%                  8.87 % (-4.43)       1 070 693               20

Turnout 47%
*It was the first victory in a national election for PIS (in terms of vote totals)
since 2005. A win by 58k votes out of over 12 million votes cast (0.49%).

[Donnie]

[windjammer]

What will be the likely coalitions?

[Donnie]

What will be the likely coalitions?

As far as I know (google translator), there will be:
14x PO+PSL (like on the national level).
1 x PO+PSL+RAS (silesian country)
1 x PIS (country on the south-east corner of Poland).