Poland election - October 25 2015

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I know that you all thing that PiS is some kind of ultra-Catholic party and will make second Iran in Poland but as most of the post-Solidarity parties they are mainly focused on power, in case of PiS claiming it after years of political failures and humiliations. As they have no partner for coalition (maybe Kukiz but I doubt if he will be able to get over 5% threshold) they must secure a majority so also they will probably a little bit make get moderate - and as you can see with president-elect Andrzej Duda and female candidate for the PM they are doing it since the beginning of the year.

Also tomorrow or day after there will be know result of negotiations between main left-wing forces in Poland to join their "forces" and try to enter the parliament. But probably this will not succeed as the main player SLD is not so keen on entering such agreements as electoral threshold for coalitions is higher (8%) and many members of party are scared that they will not get this 8% even in coalition. Main participants in talks are SLD, all what is left from Your (Palikot) Movement, Greens, Labour Union and also a lot individuals and minors but I can't tell you how big is their involvement. For me chances are equal to 20%.

Next elections and I have no party to vote on T_T

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

No, it is not possible technically and as far as I know legally as changes in electoral law can't be changed so fast. Also preparations to the elections will be during preparations to the referendum.


Also I hope that there will be no changes.


About Kukiz: He made too much mistakes, people who were standing behind his success from the organisational point of view now are willing to left him, he jumps from one flower to another and often change his mind. He is not the type of politician, it is visible that he poorly cope with all this stuff connected with elections. And alone he can't win the elections - people whom with he want to cooperate now are not the best sign of fortune as the allies. He says that he will make no platform, he don't want to cooperate with parties but eventually will allow some politicians to take part under his "umbrella". And according to polls in short time he lost half of his support.

And about only three parties in the Sejm is complete bullsh**t - polls ALWAYS underestimate PSL and they are always able to get to the Sejm. In current political situation they are unsinkable unless there will be some huge, really huge affair.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

A lot of people have interest to keep them in parliament, county-level Poland is in many regions connected to that party (PSL have opinion of nepotism based party, that is why I like them - family first!) and in consequence they have support mainly on villages. Also PSL is staunch defender of separate social security system for farmers which gives few privileges to them in comparison with the rest of population and as long as they fulfill their "mission" people would vote them just to defend their interests. So I don't think that people vote for them as for lesser evil
Other things: polls made by phonecall methods statistically have bigger chance to make polls based on more urban population than rural population. Other thing that people often don't say that they will vote on PSL.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

1) I know about them being a clientilistic party, but that should not in itself lead to underpolling.

It's connected with third question and Kalwejt answer. You can never met any person who will say to you that he/she votes on PSL as it many people may consider it not worthy to tell that they chose that party during elections.

2) How large a share of rural Poles do not have phones? (I would have thought the rural/urban difference on this was marginal by now).

I think that there is no difference, but more people lives in cities thus there is higher probability to ask in poll person from urban areas where PSL has support equal to 0%-1%. Also as Polish polling companies are really bad and I would not be surprised if they poll only in cities as their research group rarely is bigger than 1000 people.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

How many idiots are going to rise to stratospheric levels, then immediately collapse before Poland gets bored with this silliness?

I don't think it will ever happen. We are romantics, we unconsciously love such upsurges without thinking about consequences. Be British somewhere else :I

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

SLD National Council agreed on creating coalition for next parliamentary elections.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

SLD National Council agreed on creating coalition for next parliamentary elections.

With which other party/ies?

As for majors with Your Movement and as for minors for with Greens. Others are not sure because some of the minors may left if they will get no satisfactory for them places on the electoral lists.

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:') Not gonna happen in near future.

I don't really think that there is anything needed on place of SLD. Who needs social liberals with degenerated contacts with elites? As for the "real left" there is Razem party - Polish C class version of Podemos, we have also "anti imperialistic" left as there is Zmiana party and there is also "we are real labour party without pseudo-philosophical pretentious aura"  Ruch Sprawiedliwości Społecznej and Polska Partia Pracy. Not to mention all those spillovers of both SLD and Your Movement which was created during few last years.

 Just no one want so vote on them, and I doubt that all SLD electorate will go vote for them in situation with no SLD. For now left is discredited. Maybe after eventual decline of Civic Platform something will change as liberal media needs Katechonic party to STOP THE PiS!!111oneone!! and maybe they will change front to support some left party. As for now left is weak and nothing foreshadow change in that matter.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Miller is eternal.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I highly recommend to abbreviate name Zjednoczona Lewica to ZLew which can be translated into "sink/basin" - fits this coalition really well.

About the polls:

Polling firms in Poland have different methodologies so it's best to compare only previous polls conducted by this particular firm:

Month ago Kukiz had 24% in polls by this polling company but probably stabilization and now little rise still can be too little for him. But we will see.
http://www4.rp.pl/Polityka/307209915-Sondaz-PiS-na-czele-topnieje-poparcie-dla-Kukiza.html
Yesterday published poll by Rzeczpospolita newspaper made by IBRiS:
PiS – 35 proc., PO – 24, Ruch Kukiza – 13, Nowoczesna.pl - 6, PSL/SLD under 5%

From other news:

Radek Sikorski said that he would not run in the elections.

Yay.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Sorry for that, I am still a little bit sleepy.

Millward Brown

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

It was already said in that topic that there is no possibility for that because of legal issues.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Polls in Poland are useless. That is why I do not post them in this topic. But maybe I will write something about smaller parties which have plans to participate in the elections if anybody is interested. This is more interesting than PO vs PiS struggle.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Indeed, they are.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I noticed that on this message boards we have there many lefties and commies so maybe you want to know what is going on there. I am not good at writing so if you are curious about something which I did not mention - just ask.

As for now few parties declared that will try to participate in elections. To start in whole country you need to collect 5000 signatures in at least 21 electoral districts - and that in some way benefits smaller parties which have no support or structures everywhere.
As for now I have knowledge about declarations or registrations from:

Biało-Czerwoni: Just to mention this abomination - newly created splintering party of two formerly important politicians in SLD and Twój Ruch, Grzegorz Napieralski and Andrzej Rozenek. Napieralski was chairman of SLD few years ago, Rozenek was some kind of grey eminence in Twój Ruch, former spokesman. They have some media coverage, they have currently have four MPs in the Sejm and according to Napieralski 1300 declared members which is of course total bullsh**t - for them even 500 would be really big number. They are currently not planing to be part of Zjednoczona Lewica coalition as they are both, Napieralski and Rozenek in conflict with leaders of their former parties. Despite their declarations about collecting signatures in all districts this is probably just wish and "flexing the muscles". Even if they will collect the signatures they will only be able to take 0.5% from Zjednoczona Lewica. Great example of ambitions of politicians over reason and political interest. Additionally they have really ridiculous logo and name of that still not registered party is usual nickname of Polish football national team. Cheap tricks are cheap.

Partia Razem: newest child of former youth organisation of Unia Pracy called Młodzi Socjaliści and some NGOs. There are some information that this group of people in past tried to takeover some other parties (PPS, Greens) but they wasn't successful. As for now they decided to create new parties, without any ''old guard" left politicians and well-knows personas. They pretty often are called Polish version of Spanish Podemos (or party of MacBook users), although they are more social-democratic, they have much much smaller social support and they have no popular leader (in fact they have no one parson as leader, they have collective leadership). As it is usually with left-wing parties focused on young, liberal people (although they try to fight with such image and focus on economic issues, still both their supporters and potential voters are not that poor and usually are progressive in social aspects and they usually care more about it than economic issues. As for the prove: few weeks ago some fanpage on Facebook posted screens of one guy profile who was used as a face on one Razem's info-graphic where he posted some anti-immigrant stuff and not that small number of people were outraged about that, there were voices that they are not real left etc. - as normal on the left-wing. Poor people (those outraged), they discovered that potential socialist parties voters are conservative, tee hee.) they have mainly well organised structures in big cities (Warszawa, Kraków). As for the other locations they recently started to build structures in smaller towns and as far as I know they are somehow present in all voivodship capitals and even there were some attempts to build structures in UK, Norway and France but as they do not publish much about details of their organisational work I can't say if they were successful. Their biggest weakness, beside being new party with almost no recognition and still not organised structures, is very high self-esteem. Few weeks ago they proposed few different parties from the left to start not as coalition but as part of their party committee, they behave like they are only important force on the left. They think that they have many likes on Facebook,talented graphical content creators and decent number of declaration of support now they can ignore everyone and behave like know-it-all bossy dick. As for now they are a little bit enigmatic - if they will be able to collect signatures to start in whole country they even will be able to get 1-1.5%. But as for now I can't say if they are able to do that. If they will get 3% they will get state subsidies for political party but as I can see they don't need that, what can also prove what some people are saying - that they are financed, as Młodzi Socjaliści was, from Germany (maybe Rosa Luxemburg Foundation).

Polska Partia Pracy - political arm of third biggest trade union "WZZ Sierpień 80", although recently becoming more and more virtual. They used to at least try to participate in elections but recently they had no will to do that and their electoral activity were parliamentary elections in 2011 (they got 0,55% of votes). Then they were able to start in all districts but it was 4 years ago, now as far as I know party is weaker comparing with 2011. In 2013 handful of members took part in Europa+ (coalition made by Palikot before euroelections) leaving PPP but still being member of trade union (so they just wanted to get some euromonies) Their biggest asset is of course trade union which may be helpful but I don't think that they will be able to get more than 0.4% of votes with such competition. On the other hand if all minor parties will be not able to collect signatures they will easily reclaim their non-formal, maybe not leadership, but dominant position of the far-left wing.  Information about their start wasn't covered by media almost at all, but before they were mentioned as there were first meeting before creation of Zjednoczona LewicaThey resigned, probably they were quickly discouraged by not surprising dominance of SLD. Their start although possibly will not be an earthquake for the whole political scene may further decrease chances for left-wing to enter to the Sejm after elections.

Ruch Sprawiedliwości Społecznej (in this elections as Ruch Społeczny RP) - Party created also recently, in 2014. Contrary to the Razem  they have well-know leader Piotr Ikonowicz (in past we was in many parties, it is his main weaknes probalby - lack of stability and determination) and they are really more focused on economic issues than on social progressiveness. They are rather obscure anti-capitalists than media-friendly reformists, although Ikonowicz sometimes is invited by major TV stations. As this is Polish party as they have one leader his position is almost absolute and recently he decided that in next elections they will start together with rather populist agrarian organisation Ruch Społeczny RP led by Sławomir Izdebski (formerly in Samoobrona and her mutations, supporting Kukiz in presidential elections) and not as party electoral committee but as voters committee with name of Izdebski organisation what made some dissent inside the party (some para-Trotskyist fraction said that durr no cooperation with right-wing burr, but they are irrelevant). Resigning from start under own party name is not actually bad idea because people rather know Ikonowicz than name of his party.
As for the committee they, both RSS and RS RP are poorer than PPP and Razem, and as far as I know they have weaker structures. Although Izdebski had some media coverage in 2014 and 2015 as he is also leader of farmers trade union and made some protests and organised actions I guess this is too little to get more than 0.5% in elections. Sudden awakening of PPP will probably "steal" a lot of their potential electorate as they are similar in terms of program and rhetoric. On the other hand Ikonowicz is still open for cooperation with some other parties like earlier mentioned PPP and Greens. As for agrarian "wing of committee" will probably not help much as rural areas are not the same as in the 90's and 00's, farmers are generally richer and those which are dissatisfied usually votes for PiS as this party took over former Samoobrona electorate (although as far as I know some members of Samoobrona from some voivodships and various mutations of this party joined Izdebski when he was supporting Kukiz, so somewhere between 2014 and 2015).

Samoobrona - while being only shadow of former power and glory actually Samoobrona decided to start in elections. Although having no chances to register they already started to collect sigantures in few voivodships what shows that they still have somehow active structures even in really not-Samoobronish regions like Pomeranian Voivodship what is actually surprising after all those splits. I don't know if any Samoobrona mutations like Samoobrona Odrodzenie (rather virtual party with ca. 40-50 members, or even less) or Partia Regionów (nowadays they cooperate with Zmiana party, main pro-russian party in Poland) will participate in elections but probably they will not support Samoobrona. What is interesting on their webpage they posted communicate that their National Council of party officially allowed leader to talk with other parties about coalitions. Unfortunately I don't think that they will find anybody important who would be interested in such marriage. Also recently they little bit turned into right but only in populist way.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

As for the Zjednoczona Lewica coalition there are some leaks about leaders of the electoral lists in electoral districts but unfortunately there is no information if any miniors besides Wolność and Równość (split from Twój Ruch, radicall progressive and anticlerical party, rather for upper strata) will get anything.

Of course I will continue in next posts as there will be much more parties and committees.
In period of time closer to the elections I will post complete list of committees as not all will be connected with any party.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Szczęść Boże!

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Greens tying themselves to SLD seems like a terrible idea.

How are the referendum questions polling?

But if they get any first place on local electoral list they may have MPs in the Sejm.

As now campaign for parliamentary elections started no one cares about this referendum.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

But if they get any first place on local electoral list they may have MPs in the Sejm.

But the raised threshold for coalitions makes this unlikely. The SLD is a sad excuse for a left-wing party dying a slow death, and the Greens (who are one of Poland's few sane voices atm) should focus on quickening that death so that the Polish left can be represented by a party(ies) with some semblance of legitimacy, not tie themselves to a sinking ship.

But you know, Greens are really weak in Poland - they have no technical possibility to weaken SLD. In my opinion it is better to get something by cooperation and then in the times of great collapse just distance from SLD, voters usually have bad memory.

As for the new news about "Corpse" coalition (KKW Zjednoczona Lewica SLD-TR-UP-Zieloni, trup in Polish means corpse) they as far as I know divided first places on lists. I am on holidays now so I have no good connection to the news but SLD got 60% of "firsts", TR got 25% and the rest for their goons. Maybe during the weekend I will post something more about potential committees and also those registered who started to collect votes. There are a lot of them, some are really exotic and anonymous, next months will be funny.

http://parlament2015.pkw.gov.pl/komitety

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

If anybody follows updates in PKW website it is worth to mention that out of this 42 registered committees 11 are committees only to Senate and in most cases they are for only one electoral district. Prawica Rzeczypospolitej which have its committee to the Senate also starts from the Law and Justice lists to the Sejm (in every district they have 8th place on the list, such is electoral agreement between Kaczyński and Marek Jurek, MEP and leader of Prawica Rzeczypospolitej although some media said that this agreement now faces some complications).

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

No one wants to talk about Polish elections

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I remember times when PiS was ruling, it wasn't really that bad. They have changed a lot since then.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Polls are not only topic to discuss :I
I was on holidays in Spain and Portugal and now I am a little bit poorly informed but collapse of Kukiz power also destroyed few minor parties, for example Ruch Narodowy and Kongres Nowej Prawicy what might be interesting for all those hungry lefties on this forum.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

all right wing elections

And I forgot:

what?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Main parties are rather not right-wing, Civic Platform is centre and during this campaign they position themselves sometimes even on centre-left. Polls in Poland are maybe not reliable but there is positive trend for United Left and they had chances to get more votes than they deserve - even 10%. How is it right-wing elections?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

This is actually funny because during Interbellum period this "Imperial" pattern was not that visible because of variety of parties. In my opinion this division is still present not because of imperial times but because of Yalta and 1945 shifts of population. Population which settled gained by Poland territories was more vulnerable on communist influence, not rooted in territory where they were living so basically less conservative and generally owned much more to the communist Poland  than population from terrains which was inside Polish borders before 1939. Before 1939 Greater Poland was heartland of National Democracy (and people from those terrains were voting on Polish Party which was rather centre-right/centre) while Congress Poland was dominated by socialists and agrarian parties, so compared to present times completely opposite - formerly preservative and staunchly anti-German Greater Poland became more liberal (but still voting on petite bourgeoisie parties), pretty similar to the western parts of Poland - also influenced by them and rather pro-German while formerly revolutionary Congress Poland became more conservative (as they had position to defend something). So in my opinion this is just coincidence that current political "borders" are very similar to the imperial ones and current political division is based on other aspects - not on the times of partitions.