The results of the Polish General Election are familiar – the party that was in government is annihilated, and the turnout very low.
Poland’s next Prime Minister is probably going to be Jaroslaw Kzcynski, after a late swing to his Law and Justice party. In second place is Civic Platform, according to exit polls.
The projection of seats, if the counted votes tally with the exit poll will be: Law and Justice 157 seats, Civic Platform 147, Self Defense 47, SLD 54, League of Polish families 33 and PSL 5.
The major surprise there is probably that the outgoing government of the ex-communist SLD have got into double figures, percentage-wise.
The turnout though is the lowest in the history of free elections in Poland. Only thirty seven percent bothered to drag themselves to the polling stations.
But that is the only downside for Jaroslaw Kazcynski, who will be the first Prime Minister of Poland to be still living with his mum. Will she have an influence on his policies? Amd will he be setting up a kitchen cabinet?
In the last General Election here four years ago, it was the rightwing’s turn to get hammered in the polls. The then ruling Solidarity Election Action failed to get any MPs into parliament at all.
So the Polish left-right roundabout goes round again.
Which brings to mind something an old German once wrote when he was writing books in the British Library: History repeats – the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
History repeats…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This bodes badly for Tusk.
It may be a repeat of history, but damned if the voters don't get it right everytime. In broad terms, I find it hard to disagree with all the major national election results. A country can do a lot worse than a kneejerk vote-the-bastards-out policy (especially when the winners turn out to be, in fact, bastards).
I'm not so sure it bodes badly for the lispy one. I have an idea that people won't vote for a president from the same party as the prime minister. And at some level Polish voters go for manners and style, Tusk is pretty low in that area but well ahead of Kaczyński
On the other hand, the choice isn't great, the office of president is very ill-defined and I think Tusk is too wishy washy to do much (not that that's a bad thing).
But if Lech "Let me practice my evil troll expression" Kaczyński is elected though, expect a redoux of the Wałęsa years - pointless, incessant confrontations (with the added bonus of wanting to settle scores that most people don't care about).
Post a Comment