Polish Politics and Elections

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

14 PiS MPs who voted against the bill (including the Minister of Agriculture) have been suspended from the party and 'sources close to the Prime Minister' are briefing that Ziobro may be fired next week. There are also rumours that Ziobro was having prosecutors look into Morawiecki's business dealings and activities in the private sector before he went into politics.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Cezary Tomczyk, Trzaskowski's former campaign manager and anointed candidate of leader Budka, is the new leader of PO's parliamentary caucus, having easily defeated Tarnów MP Urszula Augustyn. I am from Tarnów, so I am obviously very displeased at this turn of events. This is a defeat for Schetyna, who seems to be doing a Miller and overtly plotting to take back the party even though most people would rather not hear from him for a good long while.

I would mention what's happening with the PiS/United Right crisis, but nobody actually knows. Kaczynski, Ziobro and Gowin held a press conference the other day announcing they'd come to an agreement, but refused to reveal anyone what that agreement actually entailed. There's heavy briefing to the effect that Kaczynski will enter the government as a deputy prime minister without portfolio 'overseeing' the Interior, Justice, and Defence ministries, but considering this didn't happen the last 5200 times it was floated I'll believe when I see it. Depending on who you ask, this would either be a massive humiliation of Morawiecki (who would be reduced to the role of a puppet) or a strengthening of his position in the party (because Kaczynski will have put a lot on the line personally to prop him up as his successor). That should tell you how utterly opaque all this is. Oh, and the Minister of Agriculture, who is still suspended from the party, is telling anyone who will listen that PiS are now a 'neo-Marxist' party, so I'm guessing a defection to PSL or Konfederacja is in his future.

Oh, and the Left is doing something about regional congresses and policy discussions? idk, not even I can bring myself to care at this point, which should explain why they're polling at 6%.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Restricting "ritual slaughter" seems directed at Muslims and singles out Jews as well, though I guess its fine provided domestic production of such meat is allowed.

Obviously PiS do not care very much about Muslims or Jews (except for those MPs who are particularly influenced by the industry, who are all for selling to them), but ritual slaughter was already restricted for a few years under PO (the Constitutional Tribunal eventually struck the restriction down). That was explicitly criticised by the Israeli government at the time for its impact on the Jewish community - the exemption for domestic consumption is clearly a compromise to avoid such controversy.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Finally, Poland has a new government.

- Kaczynski joins as Deputy Prime Minister in charge of 'national security', i.e. overseeing the Defence, Interior and Justice Ministers and settling disputes in the government.
- Jaroslaw Gowin returns as Minister of Development, Technology and Labour - Labour being split off from Family and Social Policy specifically so it can be given to Gowin, Thatcherite bastard he is. Oh joy.
- The Ministry of Education is merged with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and is given to noted homophobic moron who became a university professor through blatant nepotism, Przemyslaw Czarnek.
- The Ministry of Agriculture goes to Grzegorz 'who?' Puda, who was apparently the government's point man on the animal rights reform.
- The Climate and Environment Ministries are merged (why the hell were they ever separate) under current Climate Minister Michal Kurtyka.
- The Ministry of Sport is merged with the Ministry of Culture under current Culture Minister and Deputy PM Piotr Glinski.

https://twitter.com/TerryReintke/status/1311232324844085248?s=19
I’m awaiting the complete collapse of Lewica.

As usual, you know nothing. Spurek was against the whole Lewica project from the start and quit Wiosna two weeks after the 2019 election for that reason. What she does has no bearing on Lewica, and even if it did she wouldn't be any great loss anyway.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/ChrisLashHist/status/1362359880686964736

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/ChrisLashHist/status/1362359880686964736

Was the fighting mostly about muh electability or are there significant socially conservative groups within the party?

The latter, sometimes masquerading as the former.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Well that's modestly encouraging. Poland may yet avoid fully going the way of Hungary.

I don't think there's much of a connection one way or the other there. The goal is to stop Hołownia and the Left being able to take votes from PO.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Why did the Razem female chairman leave the party?

There is no such position and there haven't been any high-profile departures since 2019, what do you mean?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Why did the Razem female chairman leave the party?

There is no such position and there haven't been any high-profile departures since 2019, what do you mean?

I meant Agnieszka Ewa Dziemianowicz-Bąk

Yes, that was in 2019. She left because she was much more enthusiastic about a Wiosna-Razem alliance for the European Parliament elections than most of the party (largely because it would have allowed her to become an MEP).

I would not describe her as a great loss to Razem, but I think I am one of about eight people on the Polish left who would say so, many activists seem to see her as a basically Messianic figure these days.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/ChrisLashHist/status/1362359880686964736

Was the fighting mostly about muh electability or are there significant socially conservative groups within the party?

The latter, sometimes masquerading as the former.

That's interesting--so there is a contingent in the PO who is actually rather conservative, but who try and mask that fact by using electability arguments?

E.g.: "I SWEAR I'd love to make all abortion legal, but SADLY you know our people, the Poles are just SOOOO retrograde and will never accept us if we admit that!"

They're not subtle enough to claim the first bit. The argument often goes that Poland is such a conservative society that anyone more socially liberal than themselves saying anything will scare voters back to PiS - not that they've ever proved any good at keeping those voters from going to PiS in the first place, of course.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The mayoral by-election in the south-eastern city of Rzeszów, caused by the resignation of SLD genepool (expelled from the party for trying to ban a Pride parade in 2019) mayor and insane workaholic (among other things, he's 81 and presumably would have hung on as long as he could if he hadn't caught covid) Tadeusz Ferenc, who'd been in post since 2002, is apparently to be delayed until the 13th of June due to 'uncertainty' on whether covid cases will continue to fall. The election is seen as a test for the government because the Ziobro (hardcore Orbánista, willing to flirt with leaving the EU) tendency is running its own candidate. Coincidentally, a poll was just released today.

Konrad Fijołek (councillor for Ferenc's Development of Rzeszów local party, boring apparatchik endorsed by most of the opposition parties): 41.9%
Ewa Leniart (PiS governor of Podkarpackie Voivodeship, official PiS candidate): 24%
Marcin Warchoł (Ziobro tendency candidate, inexplicably endorsed by Ferenc, used to work for Palikot's Movement before seeing which way the wind was blowing): 16.6%
Grzegorz Braun (Konfederacja candidate, insane monarchist and plandemic guy): 11.2%
Undecided: 6.4%

As you can see, things are going great.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Lewica have made a deal with PiS to help vote through the ratification of the EU recovery fund (which was under threat due to Ziobro and co. opposing it for the usual reasons) in exchange for the government building 75,000 units of social housing, 30% of the funds to be allocated to local government to be spent as they wish, 850 million euro to be allocated to local hospitals so they can pay down their debts and 300 million to financial support for the hospitality industry due to lockdowns. I think Poland 2050/Hołownia is also backing the ratification. PO, which was committed to opposing it if Konfederacja and Gowin's loyalists couldn't be coaxed into an anti-PiS coalition (LMFAO), is naturally apoplectic and screaming about treason. Meanwhile, the polling looks like this:

https://twitter.com/JacekGadek/status/1387132518068068360

(the question is 'How should the opposition vote regarding the recovery fund?' and the options are 'with PiS', 'against PiS', 'abstain', and 'no opinion'. Yes, that's 66-3 in favour of ratification, apparently)

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

For some reason we're discussing Donald Tusk's return to Polish politics again.

This time the plan seems more advanced than the last fifty times we went through this routine (apparently he might take over the leadership of PO on an interim basis at a special meeting of the national executive on Wednesday) but I'll still believe it when I see it.

Reminder that PO is polling at 16%, behind both PiS and the guy off Poland's Got Talent.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

For some reason we're discussing Donald Tusk's return to Polish politics again.

This time the plan seems more advanced than the last fifty times we went through this routine (apparently he might take over the leadership of PO on an interim basis at a special meeting of the national executive on Wednesday) but I'll still believe it when I see it.

Reminder that PO is polling at 16%, behind both PiS and the guy off Poland's Got Talent.

Do you think support for Holownia will actually materialize or is it just a polling bubble that will pop just like with Nowoczesna?

Not an expert in Polish politics, but looking at how PO polled through its history, the party seems to be quite resilient in comparison to the one-hit-wonder parties centered around a single person (correct me if I am wrong). How would you evaluate PO's future prospects?

Apologies for the late reply.

One of PO's greatest strengths at this point in time is that they have become - although it was always inevitable to some extent - an alliance of notables and local machines that happens to have a deadweight in the form of a parliamentary party attached. Now local strength is something Hołownia, unusually, is actually trying to build up by recruiting random local politicians, but he's a long way off replicating that strength. That does however show that Hołownia's clearly not a fool (or, more likely, has people who aren't fools advising him) and so might have an easier time sticking around unlike Nowoczesna, which was doomed to a large extent by its own leader. (Accounting errors did the rest)

I'd say PO's future prospects are uncertain at present partly because of the Tusk factor - the man is washed up but probably still knows how to push Polish liberals' buttons if nothing else, and might be able to take them back to second place (though I doubt he can expand beyond that). And of course, though its interests and precise social composition have changed over the decades, the existence of a hardcore neolib vote is probably still one of the few constants in Polish politics.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The mayoral by-election in the south-eastern city of Rzeszów, caused by the resignation of SLD genepool (expelled from the party for trying to ban a Pride parade in 2019) mayor and insane workaholic (among other things, he's 81 and presumably would have hung on as long as he could if he hadn't caught covid) Tadeusz Ferenc, who'd been in post since 2002, is apparently to be delayed until the 13th of June due to 'uncertainty' on whether covid cases will continue to fall. The election is seen as a test for the government because the Ziobro (hardcore Orbánista, willing to flirt with leaving the EU) tendency is running its own candidate. Coincidentally, a poll was just released today.

Konrad Fijołek (councillor for Ferenc's Development of Rzeszów local party, boring apparatchik endorsed by most of the opposition parties): 41.9%
Ewa Leniart (PiS governor of Podkarpackie Voivodeship, official PiS candidate): 24%
Marcin Warchoł (Ziobro tendency candidate, inexplicably endorsed by Ferenc, used to work for Palikot's Movement before seeing which way the wind was blowing): 16.6%
Grzegorz Braun (Konfederacja candidate, insane monarchist and plandemic guy): 11.2%
Undecided: 6.4%

As you can see, things are going great.

Couldn't be arsed posting this at the time because it's really much less relevant to people who don't live there than the media and the politicians would have had us believe, but this happened on the 13th and the result ended up being:

Fijołek 56.5%
Leniart 23.6%
Warchoł 10.7%
Braun 9.2%

Fijołek closed strongly by targeting the Ferenc diehards who kept Warchoł afloat, and undecideds probably broke for him. Turnout was 54%, surprisingly almost the same as it was at the 2018 local elections. Naturally we're now hearing about UNITING THE OPPOSITION again. A possibly relevant fact is that the last time the right won a local election in Rzeszów was, er, 1998. And at the other end, Ziobro got a bucket of sh!t thrown at him by PiS for splitting the right-wing vote, which doesn't make any sense either but I guess it's funny to see them fight.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I don't see why this is any more likely to succeed than Kwaśniewski, Wałęsa, or Miller's comebacks, all of which were of course disasters.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The SLD is having a good old-fashioned civil war, as a lot of the deadwood in the party is now up in arms against Czarzasty's attempts to steer a course vaguely independent of PO and his plan to merge them with Wiosna on equal terms to create the 'New Left', which they (probably correctly) fear he'd be able to completely control. Now Czarzasty is suspending people left and right.

I take all the bad things I've ever said about him back, this is amazing and based, we stan our Włodek.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The SLD is having a good old-fashioned civil war, as a lot of the deadwood in the party is now up in arms against Czarzasty's attempts to steer a course vaguely independent of PO and his plan to merge them with Wiosna on equal terms to create the 'New Left', which they (probably correctly) fear he'd be able to completely control. Now Czarzasty is suspending people left and right.

I take all the bad things I've ever said about him back, this is amazing and based, we stan our Włodek.

I don't really wish PO well but if you are, you better hope Tusk is taking notes (he isn't). They still might not be able to beat PiS with the likes of Neumann, Leszczyna, Kierwiński, Kidawa-Błońska, Grabiec or Nitras as their leading figures, but they definitely won't beat them with them on board.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Hołownia announced there'd be a 'special guest' at the Polska 2050 congress and then spent weeks implying it'd be Barack or Michelle Obama to get journalists to pay attention. The congress was today, and he... unveiled an app that lets party members vote on what the manifesto should be.

Not sure if I'm appalled or sort of impressed.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The interior minister held a press conference yesterday to justify the imposition of a state of emergency by the border with Belarus, where he made various lurid claims about refugees they'd supposedly caught at the border. One of the things he showed at the conference was...

hold on, I can get through this sentence

...

An actual honest-to-god picture of a man with his face blurred... doing things with a cow, supposedly found on an SD card supposedly lost in the woods by one refugee. I have to be clear that this was aired live on TV. You can imagine what government propaganda made of this.

Inevitably, this claim attracted some scepticism. One pro-opposition media outlet looked into it, leading to this incredible sentence being published:

OKO.press was contacted by a reader who managed to find the source of the zoophilic material shown at the conference by searching for specific terms. It turns out to be an old recording, and what's more, it's not a cow, but a mare.

Because sure, why not.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Apparently there has been four defections in the Sejm to the Socialist Party, who now have 5-6 MPs and have left Levica. Any idea on why and who these four MPs are? Anyone else leave the coalition?

They have quit, ostensibly in protest of Lewica 'collaborating with PiS' (read: saving the opposition from completely fycking embarrassing itself on one particular occasion), in reality because Tusk's electoral strategy for the last 18 years has hinged on marginalising the left and you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so a split needed to be manufactured. I understand the actual PPS grassroots* are not happy about being used in this way.

*note: there are about 50 of these people, and AFAICT none of them do anything but Post

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Senate:
Gabriela Stanecka-Morawska - deputy marshall of Senate, represents swing district (75) in Upper Silesia (cities Mysłowice, Tychy and Bieruń-Lędziny County)
R
Sejm:
Robert Kwiatkowski - former president of TVP (polish state television), member of National Media Counsil, represents eastern part of Kujavia-Pomerania.
Joanna Senyszyn - former MEP, controversial, anti-clerical member of Sejm, represents Gdynia and western part of Pomerania.
Andrzej Rozenek - former ally of Janusz Palikot, member of Sejm who represents Warsaw II district (counties surrounding Warsaw).

Rozenek is best known these days for standing up for the interests of retired communist-era policemen and soldiers who had their pensions cut by PiS, even those who had passed vetting in the 90s. This is his actual value to any party that might have him (well, that and being able to say just about anything with a straight face).

You also forgot Wojciech Konieczny, senator for district 69 (Częstochowa city) and leader of the PPS. He is SLD in all but name and holds that seat because of his ties to the SLD machine that runs Częstochowa, he used to run the local hospital. I understand the nurses there were not big fans of him.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Senate:
Gabriela Stanecka-Morawska - deputy marshall of Senate, represents swing district (75) in Upper Silesia (cities Mysłowice, Tychy and Bieruń-Lędziny County)
R
Sejm:
Robert Kwiatkowski - former president of TVP (polish state television), member of National Media Counsil, represents eastern part of Kujavia-Pomerania.
Joanna Senyszyn - former MEP, controversial, anti-clerical member of Sejm, represents Gdynia and western part of Pomerania.
Andrzej Rozenek - former ally of Janusz Palikot, member of Sejm who represents Warsaw II district (counties surrounding Warsaw).

Rozenek is best known these days for standing up for the interests of retired communist-era policemen and soldiers who had their pensions cut by PiS, even those who had passed vetting in the 90s. This is his actual value to any party that might have him (well, that and being able to say just about anything with a straight face).

You also forgot Wojciech Konieczny, senator for district 69 (Częstochowa city) and leader of the PPS. He is SLD in all but name and holds that seat because of his ties to the SLD machine that runs Częstochowa, he used to run the local hospital. I understand the nurses there were not big fans of him.

Huh, well that is a pretty strong list of defections. Are they all from SLD/Wiosna and Palikot? Who are the Communists supporting; have they stopped tactically supporting Levica? Why exactly are Razem still in the coalition?

Rozenek is ex-Palikot turned SLD, Stanecka-Morawska is Wiosna, all the others are SLD.

I don't know what the Communists are doing because they usually don't do anything and there is absolutely no reason to care about them.

Why would Razem leave? They like having political influence. This is a splinter of people who think Czarzasty is indulging them too much.

I really can't emphasise this enough, this is, if anything, the right wing of Lewica splitting off. Rozenek has previously claimed to be a Korwin-Mikke style libertarian. Whatever radical possibilities you seem to see here are all in your head. Politics is not just about brave third-worldist radicals taking on The Establishment or whatever.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

PO-Konfederacja alliance is almost impossible. Konfederacja is too far-right on social issues and PO abandoned economic paleo-liberalism and became more moderate on economic issues (than 15 years ago).
If PiS didn't have majority, they would try to divide Konfederacja and create coalition with more nationalist wing of that party. Libertarians led by Korwin and Mentzen aren't reliable allies for PiS.

Ideology doesn't matter that much IMHO, you should look at it from their perspective. The people now running Konfederacja are in their 30s-early 40s but can see that, say, Kaczynski is 74 and isn't going anywhere. They've spent their adult lives trying to break into politics, and they can remember what PiS did to Samoobrona and LPR. They can also read the polls that are telling them a lot of their voters are people who see PiS as a nanny-state socialist party that's giving their tax money to poor people and Ukrainians, and that the only time their support really dropped was when they supported the abortion ban.

PiS would be easier to work with in a lot of ways, no question, they have nationalism in common and they'll be desperate to stay in power. But the fact that they'll so obviously try to split them means they're not reliable, and if Konfederacja really do as well as it looks like they could at the moment, neither PO or PiS will be in a strong position to say no to them. Mentzen and Bosak could see the appeal of propping up a PO-PSL-PL2050 minority government for a while, banking the goodwill they'd get from a lot of anti-PiS voters for that, taking credit for some tax cuts or something, and then seeing who wins the presidential election.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

So Polish political scene has entered its traditional pre-election period of transfers, consolidations and other various shenanigans which mainly shows how spineless is Polish political class:

- Konfederacja "stole" from the PiS camp one MP, Anna Siarkowska. Although she was not a member of PiS, and rather satellite party member (in 2022 she joined Ziobro's party, Solidarna Polska) it is still first defection on parliamentary level from PiS to Konfederacja. Some of the most Korwinist sympathizers were very unhappy due to the history of voting for most the the pro-social legislation of current government, but she fits well to the nationalist component of Konfederacja, so dissent wasn't that strong.

- Also, after pretty long hiatus in Polish politics all Konfederacja necromancers, who apparently had something better to do than providing life support to Korwin, were able to summon Przemysław Wipler, former pre-Konfederacja times rising star of the Korwinist right. Mainly known for his legendary photos after drunk fight with the police and some financial frauds, but still symptom of spectacular returns due to the huge popularity of the right.

They also announced the son of Marian Banaś, the head of the National Audit Office who's been at odds with PiS for years because right after he was elected he turned out to be have ties to organised crime, as a candidate. The son also has tax fraud charges against him, because of course he does.

The narrative everyone's trying to push now is that these people are jumping off the PiS sinking ship and going to Konfederacja, but I think it's actually worse than that. Banaś senior was an LPR candidate in 2005, Siarkowska was a Ruch Narodowy footsoldier, and of course Wipler was supposed to be Korwin's successor until he ruined his own career. All the nationalists and Korwinistas who tried to use PiS as a flag of convenience are going home now that their natural party's doing well.

- Former main PiS satellite party, center-right conservative-liberal Porozumienie, after long road of very exotic alliances (the weirdest being the one with Agrounia, new emanation of anti-establishment rural/farmer party, which had some weird romances with left-wing economists, which are in Poland not that common) ended up in the alliance with PSL

And now PSL are trying to form an alliance with Agrounia as well, and PL2050 are threatening to end the whole Third Way coalition over it.

I just don't get Kosiniak-Kamysz, like, as an entity. I don't think there's ever been a Polish party leader who was so in thrall to journalists. He let them convince him he was presidential material and run his whole campaign for him, and it got him 2%. He keeps bringing irrelevant 'intellectual' conservatives who have no constituency but are liked by the media onto PSL's lists. Agrounia have no support but they generate good clickbait so the media loves them? Bring them on too! Third Way is polling in double digits but the journalists are bored of it already? Guess we'd better break it up then!