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Poland's presidential election on Sunday

Started by græskar, July 05, 2020, 09:36:55 AM

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græskar

Hello friends, I'm not gonna bang on about this for too long, but I would just like to ask you to root for us next Sunday, 12th of July. The second round of the presidential election is going to take place, making a final decision between the incumbent Andrzej D*da (an obedient lapdog of PiS responsible for many gems of democratic thought, most recently "LGBT are not people") and the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, who is supported by most of the opposition (link to article in the Grauniad).

This is a big deal because the role of the president in Poland is not purely ceremonial, as is the case for example in Germany. The president can't propose laws, but he/she signs each law passed by parliament into power and has the power of veto, ie can reject laws. This veto can only be overturned by a 2/3 majority in the parliament, which PiS doesn't have. In effect this means that PiS's march of destruction through Poland would be halted, if not yet reversed. The polls are exactly neck and neck right now, so while definitely not optimistic, I do have hope.

Trzaskowski stems from the centre-right Civic Platform, the former party of Donald Tusk, and is thus a run-of-the-mill liberal. Definitely not my first choice. But as the mayor of Warsaw he supported LGBT rights and that counts for something at least. The most important thing is in any case that he's in opposition to PiS.

So please wish us luck next week, if D*da wins again, I'm afraid the march towards Orbanism in Poland will already be irreversible.

buttgammon

All the best with this - it's clearly a difficult situation, and I really hope you don't go down the Orban route as I've feared may happen.

Paul Calf

Yeah. If PiS gain the upper hand, Poland is a fair bet to join a post-Brexit coalition of right-wing wreckers, strengthening the hand of the neo-reactionary authoritarian right across Europe and the world. Poland has suffered enough under the Prussians, the Nazis and the Soviets. It'll be devastating if a significant minority of Polish people draw another calamity onto their compatriots.

petercussing

Good, luck from a part polish bloke! PiS are aptly named.

Pijlstaart

Though you will not know this, a polish man once spoke highly of me, and I remain indebted to him. I have a dream of a liberal poland, and with their low-footprint cuisine of starches and cabbage, and a heritage tram network, a poland of purpose can stand as the flagship product in our economy range of green nations. Fingers crossed.


græskar

Thank you for your kind responses. And what a wonderful vision, Pijlstaart.

Just so you know that the left is as frustrating in Poland as it is everywhere else, I've been seeing a lot of hot takes recently in Polish leftist social media that we should stay home and not vote because Trzaskowski is an ugly neoliberal and anyway PiS have done welfare transfers. I know there are some people on here who subscribe to the view that one shouldn't vote unless the candidate is ideologically pure to the bone and woke to the point of pain. And I'm as leftist as the next cabber, but from where I stand this leads to a situation where some of the Polish left could see us gays being shipped off to concentration camps by PiS (which some of them would love to do, no exaggeration) and would still make hot takes about how PiS is better than the opposition because they've bought more fire engines for the people.

Sebastian Cobb

Solidarity. Hope the right wing nutters don't do well.

Sin Agog

Is Poland another one of those Eastern-European countries where everyone under 40 has fled to hipper climes?  If so it doesn't bode too well...  At least your vote will have an inordinate impact in the polls (Poles?).

Blumf


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Sin Agog on July 05, 2020, 06:49:24 PM
Is Poland another one of those Eastern-European countries where everyone under 40 has fled to hipper climes?  If so it doesn't bode too well...  At least your vote will have an inordinate impact in the polls (Poles?).

To an extent possibly, but unlike a lot of countries from the Eastern Bloc, its had year-on-year growth since pretty much the fall of the Soviet Union and joining the EU.

græskar

Quote from: Blumf on July 05, 2020, 06:50:02 PM
When are the results expected?
Exit polls at 9pm CET on Sunday, official results probably one-two days later.

Quote from: Sin Agog on July 05, 2020, 06:49:24 PM
Is Poland another one of those Eastern-European countries where everyone under 40 has fled to hipper climes?  If so it doesn't bode too well...  At least your vote will have an inordinate impact in the polls (Poles?).
It is, but expats vote in large numbers via postal vote, so their votes actually matter very much. And the majority of expats vote against PiS, including in the UK, only Poles living in Ukraine/Belarus/Russia favoured Duda in the first round of voting. Indeed, the most irregularities were reported in the postal votes. The consular service is staffed of course exclusively with PiS loyalists and they have made no doubt every effort to tamper with the results. This is no conspiracy theory, PiS grassroots are working everywhere to falsify the election results. Citizen electoral observers in Cracow reported attempts at fraud in at least two constituencies, with ca. 20 votes for opposition candidates somehow finding their way onto Duda's pile by "accident" in one, and 100 votes for opposition candidates disappearing in the other (until the chairwoman of the electoral commission there apparently said that she was leaving the room for five minutes and "the votes better be found by the time I come back or else I'm calling the police" and they miraculously reappeared). Cracow is admittedly more right-wing than the average Polish city (you must never trust Cracow), but if this can happen in a big city, then god knows what goes on in small towns and rural constituencies, especially in the south-east which is the PiS stronghold. So I'm very anxious.

PlanktonSideburns

Ah man, hope you lads get someone less shit in! you deserve better

monkfromhavana

Quote from: græskar on July 05, 2020, 07:25:44 PM
Exit polls at 9pm CET on Sunday, official results probably one-two days later.
It is, but expats vote in large numbers via postal vote, so their votes actually matter very much. And the majority of expats vote against PiS, including in the UK, only Poles living in Ukraine/Belarus/Russia favoured Duda in the first round of voting. Indeed, the most irregularities were reported in the postal votes. The consular service is staffed of course exclusively with PiS loyalists and they have made no doubt every effort to tamper with the results. This is no conspiracy theory, PiS grassroots are working everywhere to falsify the election results. Citizen electoral observers in Cracow reported attempts at fraud in at least two constituencies, with ca. 20 votes for opposition candidates somehow finding their way onto Duda's pile by "accident" in one, and 100 votes for opposition candidates disappearing in the other (until the chairwoman of the electoral commission there apparently said that she was leaving the room for five minutes and "the votes better be found by the time I come back or else I'm calling the police" and they miraculously reappeared). Cracow is admittedly more right-wing than the average Polish city (you must never trust Cracow), but if this can happen in a big city, then god knows what goes on in small towns and rural constituencies, especially in the south-east which is the PiS stronghold. So I'm very anxious.

It took my partner ages to get her postal vote through for the first round (plus you have to pay the postage to send it back, you're literally paying to vote). Struck me as bit dodgy, but then her run-off vote came through ASAP so who knows?

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteTrzaskowski is an ugly neoliberal and anyway PiS have done welfare transfers.

This is precisely how fascism has always countered neoliberalism. And to be fair, it's frustrating as fuck. Family values evidently include violent prejudice and discrimination.

Poland's economic growth has brought with it some more enlightened attitudes, it must be said. The cities I've visited in Poland in the last 6 years have come along dramatically even in that short space of time. Young people are much more conservative than in Western Europe but there are parallels with ROI, another Catholic country and I can see there is a long battle to be won against the church. For now the church is fairly untouchable due to its role in the solidarity movement and due to their obsession with the useless hideous Pope fucking John Paul II.

Just like neoliberal 'growth' elsewhere, the overall population note it's city-centred and university cities too (some cities have plain missed out. Legnica deserves the sort of attention lavished on Poznan, Wroclaw etc but it's a crumbling place that looks more like cities in Western Romania, despite being an hour's drive from Germany).

The populist right have gained votes from abandoned people as well as their stock vote of social conservatives. Third way politics is withering into nothingness as a result of its own failure.


græskar

Exit poll too close to call, 50.4% for Duda. I'm gonna shit myself.


Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on July 05, 2020, 10:02:16 PM

Poland's economic growth has brought with it some more enlightened attitudes, it must be said. The cities I've visited in Poland in the last 6 years have come along dramatically even in that short space of time. Young people are much more conservative than in Western Europe but there are parallels with ROI, another Catholic country and I can see there is a long battle to be won against the church. For now the church is fairly untouchable due to its role in the solidarity movement and due to their obsession with the useless hideous Pope fucking John Paul II.

Just like neoliberal 'growth' elsewhere, the overall population note it's city-centred and university cities too (some cities have plain missed out. Legnica deserves the sort of attention lavished on Poznan, Wroclaw etc but it's a crumbling place that looks more like cities in Western Romania, despite being an hour's drive from Germany).

Yes, that is true. You're very knowledgeable about the region, Shoulders, I'm always impressed.

Quote from: græskar on July 12, 2020, 08:32:01 PM
Exit poll too close to call, 50.4% for Duda. I'm gonna shit myself.

Exit poll is wrong. It's Corbyn in an upset!

Gamma Ray

Quote from: græskar on July 12, 2020, 08:32:01 PM
Exit poll too close to call, 50.4% for Duda. I'm gonna shit myself.

Same as my old lady, hopefully the expat vote will swing it.

Sin Agog

Good luck, græskar!  Hopefully the exit polls don't include postal ballots- if so, that may edge it more towards the one who's slightly less of a schweinhund.  God, there was the briefest window there, when the public's thirst for bromide-bot neolibs was at its lowest, where it was truly anyone's game.  How did we make it so that everyone decent in a country is praying for the centre-right to get in over homophobic fascists? 

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Duda won, looks like a narrow margin.

It's almost as though a veneer of social protections and financial incentives for families are a popular incentive to vote for democracy stripping fascists.


jobotic

Sorry to read this, I really am.

Wonder if you'll get a load of "it's what Poland wanted, enjoy your cesspit" and "if you don't like it you should leave like I did" posts on here.

BlodwynPig


Shoulders?-Stomach!

I am quite impressed how the religious right has managed to shore up power in Poland. Wolves in sheep's clothing sums it up. Family values, benefits for young families and so on, only to be working in the background to heavily weight the media in their favour and subvert democracy.

Similar outcome to Brexit and Trump, pitching young vs old, City vs country, White collar vs blue collar. Liberal vs Conservative.  That's the way it is going to stay until the educated middle class centre left realise they are cornered (good luck guys).

græskar

Well, all is fucked. The "justice" minister gave an interview right before the vote, outlining what's next on the agenda:
- "repolonize" the media (ie buy up independent media outlets owned by international corporations to turn them into pro-government propaganda)
- finish the judiciary "reform"; there are still independent judges in the Supreme Court and regional courts, but they have a plan on how to remove them: restructure the court system so that there are two levels of appeal, rather than three, which will allow them to shuffle judges around; loyal judges will be promoted, while independent judges will be relocated e.g. 100km from home, so they will either resign or move to an insignificant post; the most strong-willed judges will be slowly destroyed by the politicised disciplinary court
- cripple the local government (which they do by deliberately starving it out of funds)
- increase control over schools and universities, probably by installing pro-government directors to promote loyal teachers and academics, while harassing and pushing out disloyal ones.

The end goal is clear - the state is to become synonymous with the party, with only the thinnest veneer of democracy draped over the authoritarian structures. Yes, there will still be an opposition and there will still be elections. But in practice, the playing field will be tilted so much in PiS's favour that the opposition will have no chance of winning.
The long-term goal is to bring up a new generation of PiS voters, through all-pervasive propaganda and nationalist education. PiS will never lose because it's going to make sure new voters only want to vote for PiS.

It is only unclear whether they'll move straight away or wait until the EU budget has been agreed. They don't wanna anger the EU before those sweet, sweet funds are secured.

I'm getting increasingly annoyed by EU's inaction in all this, by the way. It's all words, in practice they're doing nothing to stop this from happening. On the contrary, they're pumping more money into Poland. It will soon be too late, as it already is in Hungary. Maybe it already is.

It is very hard to see any hope. If it weren't for the fact that I have a boyfriend here, whom I love, I would probably emigrate (I know it's an annoying thing to say and I know I'm privileged to even be able to consider that, but it's hard to face all this hopelessness stretching out years and years into the future). It's a shame I won't be able to emigrate to the UK in future, because of Brexit.