Polish Politics and Elections

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The president has called the election for October 15. Let's go.

At literally the same time as that announcement was being made, PM Morawiecki sacked the minister of health, Adam Niedzielski, for leaking information about what sort of medicine a doctor who had criticised him had prescribed for himself. Patryk Jaki, MEP for PiS' coalition partner Sovereign Poland and raging asshole, celebrated on Twitter (!).

https://twitter.com/PatrykJaki/status/1688926892035080192?t=S7ncS6VXpwllP9aQNA_u...

When your campaign is going well...

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

But isn't Morawiecki himself just an intermediate for Kaczynski?

Yes! It's amazing, isn't it?

But then, we had a PiS minister claim today that women shouldn't vote Konfederacja because they're for a complete abortion ban, so I guess the plan is to just lie, constantly, about anything and everything.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

There's probably personal disputes between party leaders preventing this idea. But with how close Third Way has been flirting with missing the 8% seat threshold for alliances in recent polls, would they ever consider an alliance with Tusk?

I'm assuming they wouldn't, with Tusk being such a divisive (at best) figure.

Edit: I just remembered Polish Coalition barely reached the threshold in 2019 with 8.55%. Good luck losers. lol

Too late now anyway, PO has already filed its paperwork to run. Third Way said they were going to do it today but didn't, for whatever reason.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Personally, at this point I think they'll be fine - PSL have their local machines all over the place and Hołownia still has fans - but nothing more than 'fine'.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

snip

I've been quite busy lately but I do hope to put up some posts about how I think the campaign has gone before election day. For whatever reason, it's always been quite hard to get Atlas people interested in Polish politics, so I rarely look in here.

Oryx, can I ask where you're getting your information on Polish electoral geography? Because it is certainly not the case that PiS has 'poor geographic voter distribution', in fact its distribution is so good that PO could narrowly win the popular vote and still come out with fewer seats. There are a few reasons for this.

First of all, the number of seats per constituency is fixed, so a vote in a constituency with lower turnout technically has greater weight than one in a constituency with higher one. Urban turnout is much higher, and cities favour the opposition. On top of that, votes from abroad all go into the Warsaw I constituency, but it doesn't get any extra seats to account for this, so voters in the capital end up a bit underrepresented.

The other reason is malapportionment - the last time the seat allocation was updated to account for population changes was 2011, and this artificially hands PiS a handful of extra seats.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

My Senate prediction:
Safe Senate Pact (KO, PSL, PL2050, Left): 36 seats
Likely Senate Pact: 8 seats
Lean Senate Pact: 11 seats
Toss-up: 5 seats
Lean PiS: 5 seats
Likely PiS: 6 seats
Safe PiS: 29 seats

Districts:
Safe Senate Pact: 4 (Wałbrzych), 7 (Wrocław I), 8 (Wrocław II), 9 (Bydgoszcz), 11 (Toruń), 20 (Zielona Góra), 21 (Gorzów Wielkopolski), 22 (Nowa Sól), 23 (Łódź I), 24 (Łódź II), 32 (Kraków I), 33 (Kraków II), 41 (Pruszków), 42 (Warszawa I), 43 (Warszawa II), 44 (Warszawa III), 45 (Warszawa IV), 52 (Opole), 62 (Słupsk), 64 (Gdynia), 65 (Gdańsk), 66 (Tczew), 67 (Malbork), 70 (Gliwice), 71 (Zabrze), 77 (Sosnowiec), 80 (Katowice), 84 (Elbląg), 88 (Piła), 89 (Szamotuły), 90 (Swarzędz), 91 (Poznań), 94 (Leszno), 97 (Szczecin), 98 (Stargard), 99 (Kołobrzeg)
Likely Senate Pact: 6 (Oleśnica), 10 (Inowrocław), 53 (Kędzierzyn-Koźle), 69 (Częstochowa), 74 (Ruda Śląska) (flip), 76 (Dąbrowa Górnicza), 78 (Bielsko-Biała), 100 (Koszalin)
Lean Senate Pact: 2 (Jelenia Góra) (flip), 5 (Dzierżoniów) (flip), 12 (Grudziądz), 16 (Lublin), 40 (Legionowo), 75 (Tychy), 85 (Ostróda) (flip), 87 (Ełk) (flip), 92 (Gniezno), 95 (Ostrów Wielkopolski), 96 (Kalisz)
Toss-up: 1 (Bolesławiec), 51 (Nysa), 63 (Chojnice), 72 (Jastrzębie-Zdrój), 86 (Olsztyn)
Lean PiS: 3 (Legnica), 13 (Włocławek), 26 (Zgierz), 38 (Płock), 73 (Rybnik)
Likely PiS: 18 (Chełm), 39 (Ciechanów), 60 (Białystok), 68 (Myszków), 79 (Cieszyn), 93 (Konin)
Safe PiS: 14 (Puławy), 15 (Kraśnik), 17 (Biała Podlaska), 19 (Zamość), 25 (Kutno), 27 (Zduńska Wola), 28 (Piotrków Trybunalski), 29 (Tomaszów Mazowiecki), 30 (Oświęcim), 31 (Olkusz), 34 (Bochnia), 35 (Tarnów), 36 (Nowy Targ), 37 (Nowy Sącz), 46 (Ostrołęka), 47 (Mińsk Mazowiecki), 48 (Siedlce), 49 (Kozienice), 50 (Radom), 54 (Stalowa Wola), 55 (Mielec), 56 (Rzeszów), 57 (Krosno), 58 (Przemyśl), 59 (Suwałki), 61 (Bielsk Podlaski), 81 (Busko-Zdrój), 82 (Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski), 83 (Kielce)

Senate will be very likely hold by opposition. Senate Pact is going to expand their majority by a few seats.

This is a very good rundown and thank you for writing it, but I disagree with a few of your calls

I would put 1 (Bolesławiec) in Lean PiS - Piotr Roman probably took some PiS votes in 2019 and Witkowski is a total liability of a candidate IMO - parachuted in from Poznań, has a long track record of losing easy elections, and is involved in shady stuff. On the other hand, 13 (Włocławek) and 26 (Zgierz) are probably more toss-ups, both were very close in 2019 and I think the minor candidates there would probably have taken more votes from the opposition than from PiS.

I personally wouldn't dare predict 16 (Lublin), the opposition candidate there is a parachute from Warsaw, while the PiS candidate is better than last time (I heard Michałkiewicz got exiled to the Senate by the Dear Leader for sabotaging the local election campaign out of jealousy). And the minor candidates there will probably be fishing in both ponds.

18 (Chełm) and 39 (Ciechanów) are a mystery to me, but I think the PiS defectors getting a free run in those seats have enough of a brand that they might have a shot. 83 (Kielce) might also be more Likely PiS, Kielce is odd and this might be the rare case where an elderly SLD notable being the opposition candidate could actually help.

Finally, PiS has stood down and is backing local independent candidates in 21 (Gorzów Wielkopolski) and 71 (Zabrze), while the opposition is doing the same in 47 (Mińsk Mazowiecki). Probably won't matter, but worth keeping an eye on anyway.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I do wonder what caused Kon's decline in the polls. They were at 15% this summer. Do the Polish posters know more about this?

Mentzen had a massive PR blitz over the summer which attracted a lot of interest, but as is often the case with these things, they overdid it (and polls are often wonky over the summer anyway, because who on earth is talking to pollsters while on holiday). He also turned out to be shockingly unprepared in actual interviews and debates - the lowest point was when Ryszard Petru, of all people, gatecrashed one of his rallies, heckled him with basic questions about his manifesto, and left him stumbling. Konfa have now instead fallen back on their Old Reliable of Bosak, who despite having Patrick Bateman vibes at least does actual prep before going on TV.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1711358435051065710?t=3VpV0vc3oE9fZxeXIP...
This is a good public presentation of the math that I have done in the background. A PiS leaning outlet, compared to the averages, gives us a 6% lead over PO and only 9% for all the smaller tickets. But this is only a 8 seat majority for PiS+Confed. PO+ and/or the minor parties - including Confed here since they take for PiS - doing a little bit better rapidly drops that total. PiS falls below PO+ in more Western constituencies, transferring D'Hondt 'bonus' seats  awarded in allocation to the opposition. The minor parties doing a bit better gives them representation approximatly everywhere, including in the places PO+ can't make a targeted appeal towards. That's why I say 35-30-10-10-10 is the divider, with PiS or PO governments becoming increasingly likely depending on the deviations from that line and in what direction.

A more divided constellation of parties getting a majority in D'Hondt is hard when they are also losing first place,  and yet somehow the PiS voter concentration makes it possible.

I don't understand what it is you're trying to prove anymore. You're bringing up lots of things that are either obvious or not relevant, and seemingly trying to pass them off as insights that prove you somehow have special knowledge. That is really, incredibly rude behaviour on a forum where people come specifically to learn about things.

This isn't 'two different perspectives: me looking at structural barriers and you looking at the electoral map'. The 'electoral map' is literally the structure, that's kind of the point. I didn't bring up the idea of PO winning the popular vote but fewer seats because I was predicting it, I did it because it illustrates something important about the 'electoral map'.

You imply I'm not looking at all the parties. The poll you cite shows 46.2% for PiS+Konfa and 49.2% for KO+Lewica+3D. Despite being 'behind' by 3 points, PiS+Konfa are still projected to have a majority of the seats. That's the actually important thing here, it makes no sense to dismiss it with 'only an 8 seat majority'! In 2019, PiS and Konfa got 50.4% and 246 seats together - in this projection, they're losing over 4 points, but only 8 seats and still have a majority together. Almost as if the 'electoral map', drawn as is, very slightly favours them. Please, give addition and subtraction a go before you move on to the D'Hondt method.

And no, this is not just some standard bonus D'Hondt gives to larger parties. It's not even normal for Polish elections. 2015 was the first election ever where a single party won a majority of the seats. Before that it would always have been mathematically possible for other parties to 'gang up' on the largest one, if they wanted to. That's literally how a proportional system works, and it's why 'A more divided constellation of parties getting a majority in D'Hondt is hard when they are also losing first place,  and yet somehow the PiS voter concentration makes it possible.' is a genuinely bizarre thing to say. I'm going to keep insisting on this point - PiS voter concentration is one of the things making such a thing unusually difficult. This is not FPTP and in a close race, the 'bonus' from winning a lot of extra western districts by small margins can be balanced out by the 'bonus' from winning a lot of eastern districts by large margins and on lower turnouts, while still polling respectably everywhere else. This isn't even specific to PiS. If Third Way do well they will probably benefit from a similar effect on a much smaller scale.

Actually, I say this isn't FPTP, but the Senate is, and... doesn't the fact that KO+Lewica+PSL did better in the Senate than in the Sejm kind of illustrate something?

Anyway, you don't have to make up hypothetical districts here. You can literally just mess around a bit with this website, which uses results from 2019 (and 2020 voter flow data for Third Way, which I admit might be a bit problematic). This one does the same, although it seems to be down right now. Of course there's no sure way of knowing how the regional swings will fall, but on that basis our whole discussion might be pointless anyway

You're obviously right that how the smaller parties do matters a lot. In particular, there's a 'twilight zone' in the single digits where a party can cross the 5% threshold but still do far worse in seats than its vote share suggests, because it's missing out in a lot of districts. Konfederacja ending up there in 2019 was a big reason why PiS got a majority in the end. It rising far above that in the summer was the main reason why a KO+3D+Lewica majority seemed out of reach, and it dipping down from that while Lewica and 3D improve a bit, so that they pick up seats lost by PiS that could have gone to Konfa, is the main reason why it seems more attainable again.

Will PiS get fewer seats if it gets fewer votes? Yes, obviously, that's not an insight, but there are lots of reasons why this is such an uncertain election, and I'd really appreciate it if you didn't misinform people about them. There's no point to this forum otherwise.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

In actual news, the chief of the General Staff and the armed forces operational commander just resigned, apparently in protest of the defence minister regularly bypassing them and using the army as political props.

There was also a debate last night where both Morawiecki and Tusk apparently (I didn't watch) did terribly and both Hołownia and Lewica representative Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus put in respectable performances, but if that was even going to matter in the first place it might be just a smidgen overshadowed now.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I have no idea if this outfit is reputable or not. But I'm sharing this poll because, since they had a very large sample (10,000), they were able to make an interactive electoral district map:

Law and Justice: 33.45% 175 seats
Civic Coalition:    30.85% 154 seats
New Left:           12.88%  53 seats
Third Way:         11.03%  45 seats
Confederation:    8.50%   32 seats

Their methodology is polling people in the street (with quotas for gender, urban and rural), which sounds like it should be voodoo, but in the past it's done no worse than 'normal' polling. Definitely something to watch at least, tho I think they expressed some uncertainty about their own results because apparently an unusual amount of older people, especially in Warsaw and Gdansk, wouldn't speak to them.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I do wonder what caused Kon's decline in the polls. They were at 15% this summer. Do the Polish posters know more about this?

Mentzen had a massive PR blitz over the summer which attracted a lot of interest, but as is often the case with these things, they overdid it (and polls are often wonky over the summer anyway, because who on earth is talking to pollsters while on holiday). He also turned out to be shockingly unprepared in actual interviews and debates - the lowest point was when Ryszard Petru, of all people, gatecrashed one of his rallies, heckled him with basic questions about his manifesto, and left him stumbling. Konfa have now instead fallen back on their Old Reliable of Bosak, who despite having Patrick Bateman vibes at least does actual prep before going on TV.

Adding to that there were also voices of some data analysts and journalists that they overinvested into TikTok media content which apparently is now not really that friendly for Mentzen content. Other to that - due to the polls and voting intention more detailed reserach Konfederacja electorate was from all the party electorates the most inclined to change their party choice, probably due to the popularity in the youngest age groups. Thirdly, with their electoral lists registration, obviously some nutjobs and other colourful candidates from the lists "came to the surface" and got some attention in social media, which also could deter some people, especially those who claimed to support Konfederacja due to the "economic program", from supporting - or at least admitting that they support Konfederacja.

Bringing out Wipler couldn't have helped, especially since the guy looks like Mentzen's older brother lol

For those who don't know, Przemysław Wipler is a former PiS MP who defected to the Korwinistas about 10 years ago and was hyped up as Korwin's anointed successor for a long time. However, people are more likely to remember him for 1) getting in a drunken brawl with some policemen while sitting outside a bar covered in vomit, and 2) resigning from whatever Korwin's party was called that week after being accused of embezzling money. It turns out that after he left the party he became a lobbyist for British American Tobacco and TikTok, and now, for reasons known only to himself, he's trying so hard to make a political comeback that supposedly others in Konfederacja told him to stop going on TV so often because people were starting to think he was one of the leaders.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Also, speaking of Mentzen: even if you don't speak Polish, the aesthetics of this video (where he offers a bounty of a million zloty to anyone who can provide recordings of PM Morawiecki discussing shady real estate deals) tell you everything you need to know about Konfederacja and the sort of people who might vote for it:

https://twitter.com/SlawomirMentzen/status/1712050604858560632

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/notesfrompoland/status/1712415806514991186?s=20

Don't remind me, I'll be counting some of those votes!

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I saw a Polish election poster in Derbyshire the other day. Efforts to appeal to the diaspora are real.

Yes, I doubt any of them will get elected but there are even quite a few candidates this time round who are pitching themselves specifically as representatives of the diaspora. A Polish shop near me put out flyers for a Third Way candidate, which if nothing else is proof that Hołownia succeeded in building up a healthy activist base.