Poland Elections

[jaichind]

Polish elections sunday.

Polls
Civic Platform 32%
Law and Justice 30%
Self Defence 12%
League of Polish Families 8%
SLD (ruling party) 4%

In theory Civic Platform and Law and Justice will form a coalition government with the larger party taking Prime Minister.  If Law and Justice somehow become the largest party its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski will become PM.  In two weeks the Prez elections will come and Jaroslow's twin brother Lech is now the frontrunner.  In this case one cannot tell the difference between the PM and Prez.  Very interesting to have a Prez-PM team made up of brothers.
 
 

[Max Power]

Glad to see we haven't forgotten Poland.

[Bono]

Go platforma.

[Umengus]

Come on law and justice! (I think) this party is conservative on values and interventionist on economy. They are populist...

I don't like platform because they are ultra-liberal on economy. It will be difficult to make an alliance between them on economy.

Poll: 32+30+12+8+4= 86  Where is the rest?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, Law & Justice are pretty populist. IIRC mostly supported by blue collar workers.
If SLD collapses as badly as it looks like it will (from 40% to 4%. Ouch!) it'll more-or-less mark the end of Poland's "post-communist" era.

[minionofmidas]

The main cleavage in the electorate is Poland seems to be between the self-proclaimed center (Civic Platform) and the rest...and it's a class divide.

[Umengus]

Poland Elections (sunday)

460 MPs (proport) and 100 senators  (maj)

Last polls (friday)

PIS: 31,4 - 33%
PO: 29%
Samoobrona ("populist"): 10,3 - 12,5%
SLD: 8%
Ultra-conservative: 8%

5% to have MPs.

Probably a PIS-PO coalition and the next PM will be of the strongest party.

First result: 8 pm

[jaichind]

Exit polls

Law and Justice                28
Civic Platform                    26
SLD                                   11
Self Defense                     10
League of Polish Families   8

turnout was 38.3% which helped SLD with its hardcore supporter base.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

wow, that's low turnout.

What's the most leftist party besides those SLD bastards?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

wow, that's low turnout.

What's the most leftist party besides those SLD bastards?

Economically? Law & Justice; basically a Social Catholic party with close links to Unions.

[ag]

Latest results from the exit pollsters (now, they don't have info in the English page and my Polish is quite bad, so if I understood it right this is the exit poll result with adjustment for the preliminary vote count results from  54.2% of the randomly selected 1000 polling places, but I might have misunderstood what this all means - perhaps this is just the result from 542 of 1000 randomly selected polling places):

Law and Justice: 24.7%
Civic Platform: 21.6%
Union of Democratic Left (SLD) 10.6%
Self-Defense 14.6%
League of Polish Families 8.4%
Polish Peasants' Party 9.2%
Polish Social Democracy 3.5%
Democratic Party 2.1%
Patriotic Movement 1.0%
Polish Labor Party 0.8%
Centrum 0.2%

[ag]

The Polish TV, based on the data from the same polling company (TNS-OBOP) still reports:

Law and Justice: 27.6%
Civic Platform: 24.7%
Union of Democratic Left (SLD) 11.2%
Self-Defense 10.4%
League of Polish Families 9.9%
Polish Peasants' Party 5.9%

Polish Social Democracy 3.2%
Democratic Party 2.7%
Patriotic Movement 0.7%
Polish Labor Party 0.7%
Others 2.7%

So, I guess, the other results must be incomplete vote count from, primarily, rural areas.

In any case, based on whatever set of results the same 6 parties get into the Sejm (the lower house). Assuming the exit polls hold, the Polish TV projections for seat distribution in the Sejm are:

Law and Justice: 157
Civic Platform: 138
Union of Democratic Left (SLD) 52
Self-Defense 47
League of Polish Families 45
Polish Peasants' Party 19
German Minority (reserved) 2

The projected Senate (upper house) seat distribution is:

Law and Justice: 40
Civic Platform: 36
Union of Democratic Left (SLD) 8
League of Polish Families 4
Polish Peasants' Party 5
Others 9

Some other data (again, my deficient translation from Polish):

Voter turnout: 40.4 %

30 million eligible voters. 25 thousand polling places inside the country and 161 abroad.

Election was for 460 members of Sejm and 100 senators. There were 10,665 candidates for Sejm seats and 623 candidates for the Senate (or 23 candidate per Sejm seat and 6 candidates per Senate seat).

[ag]

I guess, I was right about the nature of the partial count results: it is a rapid count of randomly selected 1000 polling places (out of 25,000).  After counting 704 places the results start resembling the exit poll:

Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice)  27,8%
Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform)  24,6%
Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (SLD)  11,2%
Samoobrona (Self-Defense)  10,7%
Liga Polskich Rodzin (Polish Families' League)  8,3%
Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Peasants' Party)   6,6%
Socjaldemokracja Polska (Polish Social Democracy)   3,7%
Partia Demokratyczna – demokraci.pl (Democratic Party)   2,5%
Ruch Patriotyczny  (Patriotic Movement) 0,9%
Polska Partia Pracy (Polish Labor Party)  0,8%
Centrum   0,1%

No new results forthcoming till morning.

[Gustaf]

Most Polish parties suck, to be frank. Self-defence and League of Families especially. This Law and Order party also doesn't look too nice.

Civic Platform seems to be the only decent party in the lot...too bad they didn't get the premiership.

[ag]

Final (?) unofficial results from the electoral commission web page:

Sejm election
Number of Seats: 460
Number of registered voters: 27,201,616
Number of issued ballots: 10,926,334
Number of valid votes 10,514,456
Turnout: 40.17

Name of Party                   vote share         number of seats
Patriotic Movement           1.0%                      0
Polish Labor Party             0.79%                   0
Polish Families' League     7.89%                  33
Democratic Party              2.41%                     0
Polish Social Democracy    3.81%                   0
Law and Justice                 26.84%               152
Union of Democratic Left      11.38%             56
Civic Platform                      24.23%              133
Polish People's Party           0.29%                0
Polish Peasants' Party          6.95%              27
Centrum                               0.18%                0
All-Polish  Civic Coalition  0.14%                0
Polish Confederation Dignity and Labor    .07%      0
Self-defense of Poland           11.66%            57
Innitiative of Poland Party     0.10%            0
Fatherland's Home                0.06%           0
Party of Labor                        0.01%            0
German Silesian Minority       .05%            0
German Minority                     0.33%           2
Social Relief Workers              0.01%          0

Senate (I will omit the vote shares, since not every party stood everywhere and will list only successful parties):

Party           Number of districts w/candidates : number of candidates : number of districts where at least one senator is elected  : number of senators elected

Polish Families' League       38 : 64: 5:5
Civic Platform                     40:51:30:35
Polish Peasants' Party        34:47:3:3
Law and Justice                  39:51:38:48
Self-defense                       31:54:4:4
Independent Bogdan Borusewicz 1:1:1:1
Independent Kazimierz Julian Kutz 1:1:1:1
Independent Maciej Płażyński 1:1:1:1
Committee New Senate 2005 (Independent) 1:1:1:1
Independent prof. Marian Miłk 1:1:1:1

[ag]

So, the two big parties together will have 285 seats in the Sejm (out of 460) - a comfortable majority, though not quite overwhelming. They will completely dominate the senate together (83 out of 100 senators!), though I am not sure how much that matters in Poland. There are other possible coalitions, but, I guess, there is no reason for them to be formed at present.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any regional or whatever results?

[ag]

Any regional or whatever results?

All of them, though a lot of them are still incomplete and will change. Which one do you want? I think there are 40 districts and I am not going to retype them all.

Sejm election in Warsaw I (still incomplete as are the rest):

Civic Platform 32.52%
Law and Justice 29.83%
Union of Democratic Left (SLD) 11.98%
Polish Social Democracy 6.69%
Polish Families' League 5.71%
Democratic Party 4.72%
Janusz Korwin-Mikke Platform 2.75%
Self-Defense 2.57%
Patriotic Movement 1.09%

Every other party got less than 1%

Turnout 54.66%

Katowice
Civic Platform 34.38%
Law and Justice 31.33%
Union of Democratic Left 10.51%
Self-Defense 5.18%

Everybody else got less than 5%

Krakow
Law and Justice 37.29%
Civic Platform 30.49%
Union of Democratic Left 7.98%
Polish Families' League 5.71%
Self-Defense 5.06%

Everybody else less than 5%

Chełm

Self-Defense 22.91%
Polish People's Party 20.14%
Law and Justice 18.36%
Polish Families' League 12.52%
Civic Platform 10.15%
Union of Democratic Left 8.12%
Polish Social Democracy 3.44%

Everybody else less than 1%

These are district results - there are also results for at subdistrict levels, I think

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Cool; have you got a link?

[ag]

Cool; have you got a link?

Just realized, there is an English page! (I was struggling with Polish all this time): http://wybory2005.pkw.gov.pl/index_EN.html

Or directly to results:

http://wybory2005.pkw.gov.pl/SJM/EN/WYN/W/index.htm

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Thanks

[ag]

Largest party by district (so far preliminary, since even though in most districts it is near 100% report, other districts lag):

A. Law and Justice:
1 Białystok (28.93%)
2 Siedlce (24.52%)
3 Lublin (24.87%)
4 Krosno (33.96%)
5 Rzeszów (38.20%)
6 Warszawa II (32.99%)
7 Radom (25.60%)
8 Kielce (22.85%)
9 Tarnów (33.70%)
10 Kraków (37.29%)
11 Chrzanów (34.88%)
12 Nowy Sącz (37.12%)
13 Bielsko-Biała (35.71%)
14 Częstochowa (27.68%)
15 Piotrków Trybunalski (23.15%)
16 Łódź (24.64%)
17 Płock (24.21%)
18 Toruń (22.67%)
19 Bydgoszcz (24.73%)
20 Legnica (24.78%)

B. Civic Platform
1. Olsztyn (24.13%)
2. Elbląg (23.48%)
3. Gdańsk (39.90%)
4. Gdynia (32.76%)
5.  Warszawa I (32.52%)
6. Szczecin (28.21%)
7. Zielona Góra (24.08%)
8. Piła (24.7%)
9. Poznań (37.97%)
10. Kalisz (20.80%)
11. Wrocław (32.45%)
12. Wałbrzych (25.94%)
13. Opole (24.24%)
14. Gliwice (33.12%)
15.  Rybnik (31.67%)
16. Katowice (34.38%)
17. Sosnowiec (27.25%)

C. Self-Defense
1. Chełm (22.91%)
2. Sieradz (21.89%)
3. Konin (20.70%)
4. Koszalin (22.95%)

No other party came first in any district, but Social Democrats did get over 20% in a few.

No party got over 40% of the vote in any district! The closest were the Civic Platform, who got 39.9% in Gdansk

[minionofmidas]

Anyways, Kaczynski's said he won't be PM.
Hope Merkel follows suit.

[WMS]

And from the American perspective, this is good - both Law & Justice and Civic Platform are nationalist, pro-American and anti-Russian. But then again, it would take a lot for Poland to turn anti-American like some European countries (hint: look west). It's rare for there to be bad news out of our staunch ally Poland. Bad news for Belarus, as well.

[Umengus]

Poland PM-designate submits Cabinet

Monday, October 31, 2005 Posted: 0944 GMT (1744 HKT)


 

 WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Poland's Prime Minister-designate Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of the Law and Justice party submitted his minority government Monday to President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a spokesman for Marcinkiewicz said.

"Our people took the (Cabinet) list to the palace," Konrad Ciesiolkiewicz told The Associated Press.

The ministers, whose names were not immediately made public, were to be sworn in later in the day and the new government faces a confidence vote in parliament within 14 days under Poland's constitution.

The socially conservative Law and Justice, which finished first in last month's parliamentary election, was expected to present a minority government including "experts" from beyond its own ranks.

Coalition talks with the election runner-up, the pro-market Civic Platform, broke off last week over the division of top posts.

But Marcinkiewicz has held out hope of an agreement with Civic Platform and has said talks which were revived on Sunday evening would continue, even after the ministers list is presented.

Marcinkiewicz said on government radio early Monday he would submit the 17-member Cabinet and key policies for a confidence vote in parliament on Nov. 10 and hoped the team would serve a full, four-year term.

"It will be a government of experts, some of them from outside Law and Justice," Marcinkiewicz said.

Civic Platform suspects Law and Justice of seeking to hold power with the informal support of three smaller parties in parliament, the anti-European Union Self-Defense, rural Polish Peasants' Party and Roman Catholic conservative Polish Families' League.

Civic Platform's possible exclusion from government has rattled markets and sent the zloty currency lower, since the party stressed cutting budget deficits to get ready to adopt the euro. Law and Justice, on the other hand, favors more social welfare benefits that would strain the budget.

Law and Justice's hand was strengthened when its candidate, Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, won the presidency October 23.

Lech's twin brother, Jaroslaw, heads Law and Justice but stepped aside as prime minister in favor of Marcinkiewicz because the two brothers believed the country did not want identical twins as president and prime minister.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


Big surprise? certainly not... He could have populist and ultra-conservative support at parliament