As it was expected, the parliamentary election in Poland has been won by the conservative party Law and Justice (PiS), which received 39 percent of votes. According to exit polls this political force wins 242 seats in the parliament, which would allow it to fully control the government. Thus PiS becomes the first party after the revolution of 1989 that receives the absolute majority of seats in the Sejm.
The ruling party, Civic Platform (PO) has been supported by 23.4 percent of the voters and will retain 137 seats in parliament. It should be noted that the result of PiS exceeded the forecasts of sociologists, which were based on interviews conducted a week ago. Meanwhile, the ruling party’s result was lower than expected. It is possible that the victory of the opposition was enforced by the scandal on Friday – the Deputy Minister of Justice was detained in Wroclaw, as she was caught driving drunk by the police and resisted the arrest.
But the surprises of parliamentary elections in Poland do not end here. The runners-up on the third and fourth places were respectively the Kukiz’15 party of Pawel Kukiz, rock musician, with 9 percent of votes, and the Modern Party, 7.1 percent. Those are completely new parties, which have been established recently.
Another surprise was the failure of the Polish left – The Left Union, which for the first time was unable to tackle the 8 percent threshold and will not be represented in the parliament. Another interesting statistics is that 26.6 percent of young people aged 18-29 voted for PiS, and 20.6 percent – for Kukiz. The incumbent Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has thanked voters for “the eight years of PO in power.” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS leader, dedicated the victory to his brother, late President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash near Smolensk. In particular, he said: “Mr. President, mission accomplished,” and promised that PiS would not resort to “revenge” towards their opponents. “No one will hit those who fell. Even if they fell through their own fault, and justly so,” said Kaczynski at his election headquarters.
Some observers point out that the reason for the PO defeat, which has a good record of achievements in the past eight years of government, was not the lack of promises, but the general degeneration of the ruling class and the lack of new ideas.
“It was a referendum on PO, and on all of its scandals and cassette recordings, on Tusk, on the retirement age, and on the idea that you need to scare people with Kaczynski in order to win. This is not the election of a new policy, it’s rather the election of new faces,” wrote Lukasz Mezyk on 300polityka.pl.
Meanwhile, the opposition relied on ideas, many of which were populist. The future Prime Minister Beata Szydlo promised to lower the retirement age, to increase the minimum wage, to assign monthly 500 zloty (120 euro) family payment per child, and to increase bank taxation. Kaczynski for his part has promised to put an end to crime and corruption.
The Day turned to experts for comments on the Polish election results and for a forecast on how the PiS rise to power might affect Ukrainian-Polish relations.
“KACZYNSKI WILL ASSUME COMPLETE CONTROL OVER EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWERS, STAYING OUTSIDE THE CONSTITUTIONAL BOUNDS”
Michal KOBOSKO, Director of the Wroclaw Global Forum at the Atlantic Council of the US, Warsaw:
“I would have called the election results an earthquake; it is of course a dramatic shift in the Polish politics. The political playground had been fairly stable since 2007, when PO won the election and assumed the power. And everything had been balanced for eight years, until Donald Tusk decided to leave the country for the European Council presidency. During his rule, PO was invincible. Tusk decided to appoint Prime Minister Eva Kopacz as his successor. And as it is apparent now, that Tusk’s decision was not particularly solid. He chose Kopacz, thinking that she would be loyal to him and to the party and would not change her political stance. And she has been loyal indeed, but she lacked charisma and determination, precisely the traits that were prominent in Tusk.
“Additionally, the Polish population was rather tired of one party rule. People were also tired of the scandals that emerged past year. In particular, one can recall the tape scandal, when Polish ministers were illegally wiretapped and the secret service could do nothing about it. It showed that the incumbent government was quite weak and did not control everything. And the promises it gave to the people were not a big step forward, not the swift and radical reforms which would improve the lives of people in Poland. This party has simply lost its common ground with the electorate. And it was one of the main reasons why people turned their backs on PO at the Sunday elections and decided to vote for Kaczynski instead.
“It is still not clear whether Kaczynski would be able to form a government on his own without the involvement of a smaller party. The other conclusion is that Kaczynski will assume complete control over executive and legislative powers, staying outside the constitutional bounds. He likes to laud himself and to be compared to Jozef Pilsudski, Polish Marshal from 1918 to 1935, who was neither the prime minister nor the president, but the de-facto head of the country. To some extent, he had unconstitutional powers. And somehow we are now facing a similar situation. Kaczynski will fully control President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, not having any clear responsibilities or formal authority, derived from the Constitution. This will make Poland a unique country among EU member states. We will have a person who controls all branches of government, from the president to the Sejm and the Senate, not bearing any responsibility for decision-making. This situation is completely new for us, and we are yet to see how it will work in practice.”
Will there be any changes in foreign policy towards Ukraine?
“Judging by the campaign, we will have a moderately conservative government, which will show more Euro-skepticism than the previous one. But I do not think big changes to the Polish foreign policy should be expected. Speaking of Russia and Ukraine, Kaczynski has extremely negative attitude towards Russia, especially after the 2010 crash near Smolensk. Therefore, we can expect anti-Russian rhetoric, although it is not clear how it would be perceived by Polish Western allies. The US, France, and Germany have sent clear signals that they wanted to build a better relationship with Russia. This is one area in which one can expect the differences between Poland and Western allies to grow.
“In July of the following year, there will be the Warsaw NATO Summit. This is an important meeting at the highest level – the first one after the war in Ukraine has started, and the first one after the summit in Wales, where the Alliance had decided to create the joint rapid reaction force.
“Therefore we need a clear compromise between the Polish government and the Western allies, in particular Germany, the US, and France.
“I do not expect significant changes in the Polish policy towards Ukraine. But in my opinion, we had not had many reasons to be happy about the activities of Kopacz government in that regard. Before that we had a very active Prime Minister Donald Tusk and a very active Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. After their departure, Poland became less active in relations with Ukraine.
“Thus, we can expect more activity on the part of Kaczynski’s party in relations with Ukraine. However, as the policy towards Ukraine will be more active, it remains to see who will be responsible for the foreign policy. The exact person chosen for this task remains unclear. In addition, you need to see what the priorities of the new minister would be.”
“I WOULD NOT BE SPEAKING OF DRASTIC CHANGES IN THE EASTERN POLICY OF POLAND”
Leonid ZASHKILNIAK, Ukrainian historian; deputy director for research, Ivan Krypiakevych Institute for Ukrainian Studies, NAS of Ukraine:
“Poland gradually adopts domestic balance of power characteristic of democracies; it can be characterized as follows: no political party has a monopoly on long-term government and another political force must change it eventually. In particular, in Poland over the past ten years we have seen power shifting from PiS to PO. After two terms by PO it is obvious, that Polish society feels the need for the change of political leadership.
“Regarding the election results we can observe a certain tendency in Polish politics towards conservative stance. As for the introduction of new political parties in the parliament, I think that some of them stem from external forces – furthermore, the forces that are hostile to Poland. These forces can be seen at work in any country of Central and Eastern Europe, from Montenegro to Poland, not to mention Ukraine. And the appearance of marginal parties, which have the appropriate financial support, might indicate to some extent the reaction of Polish society to these crises, which are now generally occurring throughout Europe.”
Are there any risks for the deterioration of relations between Ukraine and Poland after PiS ascension to power – or, more precisely, after Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s, who controls the decisions of this political power?
“It is hard to say. Remembering the past, the rule of PiS under president Lech Kaczynski, who represented the party, had marked not the worst period of Ukrainian-Polish relations. So, I would not say that we have to expect any drastic changes in the eastern policy of Poland.
“During the election various issues were raised, including the Ukrainian issue. But the past year I did not see any significant anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland. In the summer I was in Warsaw, and a few weeks ago I visited Lublin – in neither case did I notice any anti-Ukrainian trends – or, should I say, symptoms.
“The Polish political elite have a very good immunity from Russian politics. And especially now, when Jaroslaw Kaczynski comes to power, one can safely assume that Polish-Russian relations will deteriorate. Let’s not forget that Lech Kaczynski was Jaroslaw’s brother, and that Jaroslaw has repeatedly raised the issue of Lech’s murder near Smolensk. But the past governments had muffled these discussions.
“Let’s also hope that the Polish elite have learned well the conclusion of Jerzy Giedroyc that ‘without an independent Ukraine, no independent Poland is possible.’ However, we must reckon that Polish politics, particularly its right wing, has some revanchist sentiment and nostalgia for the Kresy Wschodnie, which might influence the governmental circles. But for now I would refrain from guessing how serious it might manifest itself in the PiS camp.”
