Poland General Discussion

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Also, Nowoczesna will have this week its congress and they will choose their new or old leader. Ryszard Petru have serious competition from Katarzyna Lubnauer, parliamentary club leader and one of the most well known politician of Nowoczesna.

Lubnauer won in a squeaker, humiliating Petru who openly expected to win by a landslide. He will not be missed.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

A historii tego swetra i tak byś nie zrozumiał.

Ein Kredyt, Ein Debet, Ein Ryszard.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Does this represent an ideological shift for Modern or what?

Ideologically they're basically the same, apart from maybe abortion where Lubnauer is marginally more liberal (she wants a slight liberalisation of existing laws, Petru didn't want to discuss the issue at all). The main difference is that Petru is an extremely gaffe-prone, tone-deaf and basically rather incompetent politician and his approval rating has fallen off a cliff. Lubnauer is considerably more popular with liberal voters and is an absolute darling of the liberal media, so her becoming leader may make it easier for them to eat away at PO again.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

As of trade ban on Sundays, I'm sceptical for one main reason. We don't have strong unions, and those remaining are more or less in bed with political parties (Solidarity with PiS, OPPZ with SLD). And without adequate workers' rights protection the business will be scaling down/reducing on expense of the workers themselves.

There also appear to be some absolutely massive loopholes in it, like the bakery thing (bakeries can remain open on Sundays, but a lot of supermarkets have bakeries on site these days...). I'm not against the trade ban on principle but it's not a great law.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Kukiz'15 have offered to help PiS elect the new members of the National Judiciary Council in exchange for passing a bill implementing the institution of justices of the peace, who would be elected for 5-year terms. *facepalm* PiS needs Kukiz's help as under Duda's proposed law on the Council new members must be elected by a 3/5 majority (PiS+Kukiz lack one, but most of the independents are likely to vote with them anyway), and the other opposition parties are not going to cooperate.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Piotr Duda, the leader of Solidarity, said in an interview that he 'doesn't understand' Morawiecki's appointment and fears that it marks a liberal turn in economic policy. He also criticised what he described as Morawiecki's unwillingess to cooperate with the unions (specifically citing him pushing through a pension contribution reform both the unions and employers' associations opposed as an example) as Deputy PM and said that strikes are possible if he continues to act the same way now that he's Prime Minister. Will be interesting to see if other important PiS constituencies react the same way.

At the same time PiS also passed President Duda's proposed laws on the Supreme Court and the National Judiciary Council, and pushed a reform of the electoral law which would instate term limits for mayors, shorten the terms of the members of the National Electoral Commission through the relevant parliamentary committee.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Fake news and junk poll I say. Facebook told me Razem will win next time around. Why would Zuckerberg like to me lie this?

Man, where do you find these people who think Razem will win? I've never seen any of them, and I literally have a member of the national executive as one of my Facebook friends...

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Btw will SLD run as a coalition (meaning they need to cross the higher threshold) or as a unified party next time around?

Also has Miller stepped down yet?

They have enough trouble getting over 5% in most polls as it is, I doubt they'll be that stupid.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Btw will SLD run as a coalition (meaning they need to cross the higher threshold) or as a unified party next time around?

Also has Miller stepped down yet?

They have enough trouble getting over 5% in most polls as it is, I doubt they'll be that stupid.

If only ZL ran as a voters' committee instead of a coalition...

But then they wouldn't get that sweet sweet money, Kalwejt.

I wonder what the money Twój Ruch are getting is going towards.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The Senate has passed PiS' changes to the election code which gives the Minister of the Interior much more influence over the appointment of election officials, curtails postal voting and dramatically changes the definition of a spoiled ballot, Morawiecki has announced a 500mln zl investment programme into biotechnology to develop the Polish pharmaceutical industry (at least it's actual state investment this time and not just giving out massive corporate tax cuts and throwing money at foreign companies who were going to invest in Poland anyway), the Defence Ministry is buying three new ships (which we all know is going to end up taking forever and probably being an excuse for massive corruption), and Ziobro has asked the Constitutional Tribunal to rule on the constitutionality of an article of the penal code which bans discrimination by service providers (basically trying to sneak those stupid American 'religious objections' laws in through the back door).

Meanwhile, Ein Kredyt Ein Debet Ein Ryszard has given an interview to Rzeczpospolita in which he basically confirms that he's going to continue throwing a hissy fit over being removed as .N leader, criticises every decision Lubnauer has made since becoming leader, and announces that he has stopped soliciting donations to the party from his friends and will not resume until he is assured of an unspecified degree of influence over the direction of the party. Also, the chairman of Kielce .N shared a graphic on Facebook basically calling 500+ recipients alcoholics.

I'm beginning to think the weakness of the opposition might not just be down to the Polish people being dumb ungrateful proles who want free money, guys.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Btw will SLD run as a coalition (meaning they need to cross the higher threshold) or as a unified party next time around?

Also has Miller stepped down yet?

They have enough trouble getting over 5% in most polls as it is, I doubt they'll be that stupid.

If only ZL ran as a voters' committee instead of a coalition...

But then they wouldn't get that sweet sweet money, Kalwejt.

I wonder what the money Twój Ruch are getting is going towards.

Your post prompted me to google TR and I found, with surprise, they still exists.

I've seen polls this year where they still got 1%!

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

There was a government reshuffle today and this is how it went: (WARNING: LOTS OF OPINIONS AHEAD)

- Antoni Macierewicz (Defence Minister) out and replaced with Mariusz Błaszczak (previously Interior). Macierewicz is a far-right lunatic who's probably the worst defence minister we've ever had so his replacement by a slightly less far-right stable person is a welcome development.
- Deputy Speaker of the Sejm and lead Kaczyński sycophant Joachim Brudziński moves to Interior. Sigh.
- Witold Waszczykowski (Foreign Affairs) out and replaced by Jacek Czaputowicz. Waszczykowski is a moron and Czaputowicz is an academic with a background in international relations, so this is also a welcome development.
- Jan Szyszko (Environment) out and replaced by Henryk Kowalczyk, previously minister without portfolio (interdepartmental fixer, basically). Szyszko is a hilariously corrupt moron and Kowalczyk is literally just a man so I'll take it.
- Konstanty Radziwiłł (Health) out and replaced by Łukasz Szumowski, cardiologist and former Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education. Radziwiłł was a massively incompetent so-con and I don't have a clue about Szumowski.
- Finance and Development Ministries staffed with Teresa Czerwińska and Jerzy Kwieciński respectively. Boring technocratic Morawiecki loyalists about whom there isn't much to write.
- Ministry of Digitalisation gone as expected.
- Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing transformed into just the Ministry of Infrastructure despite rumours that the minister, Andrzej Adamczyk, might be sacked for the delays on PiS' flagship house-building programme.
- New Ministry of Business and Technology with Jadwiga Emilewicz, previous deputy minister of development and Gowin loyalist as the minister.

tl;dr PiS have ditched all their dead weights and are going after the liberal centre(-right) and PO are rubbish enough that they might actually pull it off. We're ed.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Crisis averted, PSL will now have joint parliamentary club with UED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_European_Democrats

In the long run it might be bad idea.

Michal 'Pinochet' Kaminski brings misfortune to every party he hooks up with. RIP PSL, you won't be missed.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I made a separate thread on the local elections, because why not: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=283164.msg6027298#msg6027298

WARNING! BREAKING NEWS!!!


Janusz Korwin-Mikke is resigning from being MEP.

Oh, too bad
For some reason he was always bullying a Spanish MEP. I guess those times have ended. Plus we'll miss other of his best interventions in the EU parliament.