Stop counting

Posted at 20:30 CET

This evening, the National Electoral Commission (PKW) declared the final results of Sunday’s voting. Turnout was the highest post communism at 53.88% and the more I think about this, the happier I am because Poles have demonstrated their ability to cast a vote when it is really needed. I suspect, but I’ll have to wait four years to find out, that future turnouts are unlikely to sink to the 40% levels we have seen before. Elections may be taken more seriously from now on as the public have spent the last two years living with the result of voter apathy.

PO gained 41.51% of the votes, PiS 32.11%, LiD 13.15% and PSL 8.90% and that’s the end of the list! All the fringe parties failed to pass the 5% required to enter parliament, the best of them getting 1.53%.

It is being widely proclaimed on the news that PO and PSL will form a governing coalition although we will not know for sure until tomorrow. Donald Tusk has declared that he will be the next prime minister. The leader of the defeated government, Jaroslaw Kaczynski of PiS, has declared he will hang around and try his hand at opposition for which, I think, he is more suited.

LiD are the reincarnated SLD, who pretty much dominated Polish politics (in one form or another) from 1990-2004 and spawned Aleksander Kwasniewski, ex-president and probably the best known Polish official outside of Poland. Widely considered to be “left-over communists” and having suffered from numerous scandals they are just now showing signs of trying to get their act together. Even Kwasniewski got involved immediately prior to the elections although appearing to be drunk most of the time didn’t really help much. They may be a force to be reckoned with next time around, or they may sink without trace. Who knows?!

A good article by Adam Easton of the BBC provides the following clips by way of further information:

The leading daily Gazeta Wyborcza summed up the mood of the anti-Kaczynski supporters. “Poles rejected Law and Justice’s populism, insinuations, fear and its pitting one social group against another. They rejected the policy of conspiracy theories, false pride, truly nationalist megalomania, arrogance and anti-German phobias,” the paper’s deputy editor-in-chief Jaroslaw Kurski wrote in a front page editorial.

Civic Platform’s 50-year-old leader Donald Tusk has promised Poles a calmer, inclusive style of government under which all Poles can prosper.During campaigning he repeatedly said Poles should expect an “economic miracle”. He said the country could take advantage of its skilled labour force and EU funds to replicate the success stories of countries like Ireland.

“This result means that Poland’s politics will look very different. This will be a forward-looking, modernising government trying to heal the wounds of the last two years, during which the Kaczynski brothers divided society,” Pawel Swieboda, head of the think-tank DemosEuropa, told the BBC.

Civic Platform has already signalled its intention to bring the 900 Polish troops serving in Iraq home next year. It might also take a tougher stance in negotiations to host a US missile defence base in Poland.

“Civic Platform will want to negotiate in a tougher fashion with the United States because it considers that our policy vis-a-vis Washington has been too soft at the edges,” Mr Swieboda said.

“Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s great merit, and this benefits everyone, will be the eventual destruction of the populist parties – the League of Polish Families and Self Defence,” wrote columnist Piotr Zaremba in the Dziennik newspaper.

We have a result

Posted at 23:30 CET.

They finally lifted the reporting curfew at 22:55. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great result for Poland – Civic Platform / PO (the good guys) 44.2%, Law & Justice / PiS (the idiots) 31.3%, New improved SLD (Kwasniewski & Co) / LID 12.2%, Polish People’s Party (the other good guys) / PSL 7.9%. The two other minor parties that PiS had to drag in (and out) of the recent coalition to hold onto power both scored so badly they failed to get into parliament!

These figures will be adjusted somewhat over the next couple of days as the final results come in. Turnout was the highest since the fall of communism in 1989, around 55%. The previous record turnout, in 1990, was 52%. Last election was, if I recall correctly, about 40%.

You need more than 50% of the votes to form a government, so this home predicts a government formed by PO and PSL who, at the moment at least, like each other and stand a chance of getting along. New prime minister is likely to be Donald Tusk, leader of PO, unless he decides to stand back and wait for presidential elections.

The Civic Platform’s program includes (or included):

* Implementing a flat tax: 15% for personal income tax (PIT), corporate income tax (CIT) and VAT.
* Privatization of the remaining public sectors of the Polish economy.
* Privatizing health care (currently, Poland has a public healthcare system).
* Decentralization: allocating a larger portion of the budget for local government.
* Direct elections of mayors and governors.
* Higher education reform, with equal rights for private and public universities.
* Expanding the teaching of economics in secondary schools.
* Halving the number of MPs in the Sejm from 460 to 230, and depriving them of parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
* First-past-the-post electoral system (currently Poland has proportional representation).
* Labor law reform to reduce the power of labor unions.
* Retaining full control over monetary policy by the National Bank of Poland.

It remains to be seen how they get on with that list but I do like the sounds of the top one (not that it will ever happen)! In fact, they all look like good ideas to me, on paper at least. Will Tusk be the Polish Thatcher? I have mixed feelings if that is the case.

Voting day

It’s a beautiful autumn day here today. The sun is shining and the autumnal colours in the foliage are radiant. Bit nippy though, got down to 1C overnight and looks like today’s high won’t get above 9C.

Today is marked by two things. First and foremost it’s my brother-in-law’s 33rd birthday; Happy Birthday Karol!

Secondly, it is the day this country has a chance to tell the idiotic Kaczynski twins what they think of their attempt to run the country in recent years. President Kaczynski is safe, for a while at least as this is not voting for president, just for the parliament (his brother) and it really is time for a change of who runs the country.

So, we’ll be off to the polling booth later today. Marta will vote (I can’t), as usual for the “Civic Platform” as it is translated, PO as they are known over here (I assume she will anyway). This is, however, exactly what happened last time in every major city in Poland but they still lost. Why? Because if you take the population of the top 20 cities in Poland you get to about 12 million. The population of Poland as a whole is 38 million and the current idiots’ agenda of playing the “We’re good Catholics and we hate communists and the EU and gays (including Tinky Winky) and….” card all the time is very appealing to the 26 million farmers living on nothing in tiny villages.

What also helps their cause is that these 26 million can only get TVP television, the equivalent of the BBC, which is quite firmly in government control. The independent channels, primarily TVN & Polsat, which do actually provide more accurate news, are only really viewed in the big cities.

Having said all that. I think (hope) even the farmers have now had enough time to see what a ridiculous circus a Kaczynski led government really is.

My theory is that every new democracy needs time to settle down before it obtains the boring three party left-middle-right system that exists in the UK, for example, nowadays. Although one could say the UK has now matured even further to have middle, middle & middle parties!

The UK Parliament is one of the oldest representative assemblies in the world, having its origins in the mid-13th Century. Poland has been playing with it for what, less than 20 years. They have a long way to go.

Perhaps if we do get the right result, many of those who left the country will come home with renewed optimism about their future in their own country.

First post.

Well, the weekend is here and the whole family is back together again after what seems like too long apart. My wife, Marta, had been away for a few days on a psychology training course and, with me being a working man (and therefore not suitable for looking after children under 16), my daughter, Zosia (nearly 5), was staying with babcia (Grandma) most of the time.

Memorable events of the past week. Marta was finally given a proper job at the psycho hospital where she has been working hard for many months as an intern. This means they’ll start paying her, but at approx 400 Eur per month after tax, we won’t be painting the town red. Very pale pink perhaps. Her salary is actually pretty good compared to others in the Polish health system. Whoop-dee-doo! The pay, or lack of, situation for medical staff is, however, a serious issue in Poland and there have been many protests over recent months. Staff at Marta’s hospital are on hunger strike at the moment as a way of protesting. Strangely enough, one of Marta’s first duties as a paid member of staff might be to go on hunger strike for more pay!

I can’t help thinking of the IRA when I hear the words “hunger strike”. Yes, I’m THAT old! Before anyone panics, me included, these hunger strikes are not the kind where you never eat, get sick and die. These are more like two days on, two days off. At the moment at least.

Also, this week saw two members of the family in print, in national newspapers (sort of). Marta gave an interview to the Gazeta Wyborcza about the situation in the hospital and I started as the “Poland Expert” for Guardian Abroad. We tried to get Zosia to write something for My Little Pony Weekly so we could get a full house, but she was too busy making a mess.