Local elections in Poland, EU citizens should register to vote

democracy in present form is for morons by morons to morons ....

Poles can vote in my country (the mayor of my city is Polish) - why shouldn't I vote in Warsaw, where I live and pay taxes. Poland isn't Albania or Belarus!


Damn right.


Not for long. The EU are harmonising it all at the moment.


Aren't we all a ship of fools?

But at least they've done something, eh?

What did PiS achieve, apart from using the security forces to spy on the independent media?

Merged thread:
Who voted today?

me :)


Far too many. The whole structure seems deliberately designed to the Communist way of doing things - and doesn't appear to have been thought out rationally at all.

There's absolutely no need to have the powiat structure, and if the smaller gminas find that their interests aren't being expressed, then they can join together to form bigger units.

Two sheets of bristol and a sheet of A4. Yes, i voted

Oh dear. Looks like PiS couldn't even force a 2nd round of voting in Warsaw.

In the whole country It is 33/27. Oh dear indeed.


So you say that ruining the public finances is a good thing ?

That's for the absolutely pointless Sejmik elections, not for the whole country at all. Even just now - it was 50/21 in Pomorskie. Good result? No.

They've still lost ground from the 2006 elections to the "Sejmiks", and worse still, they're not even getting into the 2nd round of many of the Presidential races. Heck, they haven't even managed to get into the 2nd round in Krakow!

But returning to the Sejmik elections - it's 10/6 in favour of PO. It was 8/7 in the Presidential election. You call this a good result?


Do I have to remind you for the millionth time that PiS and Kaczynski promoted spending more than PO have done? While PO were reigning in spending, PiS were screaming "SPEND, SPEND" because America was doing just that.

End result : America is ******, while Poland is doing ok.

34/27/16/13/....

The gap seems to be growing. PiS is becoming a "3rd party"...which is scary considering there is no 2nd party..Oh how they screwed this one up...

The worst thing for them is that it's not a total disaster - the Sejmik results will give Kaczynski just enough support to stay in position until the Sejm/Senat elections.

But when you dig into the results, you can see what a disaster it was for them - barely 10% in the Poznan Presidential election for example. About the only thing that this election is telling us is that Kaczynski's strategy isn't working and that the SLD's strategy is.

Not a bad result for the PSL either.

So you say there should be no elections on the level of regions ? How very European of you.


That's the only level where you can compare support for political parties, on the level of cities and towns people vote for a person, not for a party, in many cities (inlcuding Wrocław or Poznań) candidates not connected with any political party are by far more popular than these from PO, PiS or SLD, in many other cases you would find many people voting in parliamentary elections for PiS, who vote PO member for a mayor of their town (or the other way around) simply becasue they personally know this guy and know that he will do a good job, I know that It may be too difficult to understand for so enlightened person as you, but on the local level voters often don't follow their country-level political preferences.


Again, you are showing that you simply have no idea about reality in Poland, nevertheless you still prentend to be sa super dooper expert on these matters. PSL has always been very strong on the local level, especially in towns and villages where they have many local leaders on their lists but It doesn't change a fact that they probably won't even get into the parliament after the next elections.

No, I think they would be best to be elected on the basis of the gmina elections. The Sejmik have little to no power - and most people don't care about them. Elect them on a proportional basis according to results in the gmina elections, job done.

Of course, in a perfect world, we would keep the Sejmik elections and grant them much more power. But sadly, the consensus in Poland is for a strong central government.

Nonsense. Most of votes on the gmina level goes to local commeeties.

That's only because the system encourages it. If the gmina level elections suddenly had much more importance, then you'd see the parties pay much more attention to them. Think about now - the national parties don't care if "Jan Kowalski" gets elected to a local gmina council, because he has no influence over them. But if he suddenly has influence over the Sejmik elections - and the Sejmik has much more power, then we'd see far more relevant elections at the gmina level.

Win-win situation.

Total nonsense, gmina level elections are very important but there people pay attention to the individuals on the lists, not the parties which support them, so in most cases they vote for local commitees, which doesn't want to have anything to do with mainstream political parties. And how the hell getting mainstream political parties with all their sh*it to the lovel level would be a good idea ? How the hell would you divide 30 seats in the Sejmik between +100 gminas ? If in gmina Rewal the elections were won by "Our Rewal" commitiee then how many places in the Sejmik would that give them ?

Exactly - so the parties would be forced to get those individuals under their wing. Not an easy job, and would make the national parties far more accountable. If they failed, the national parties would have to contend with strong coalitions at the provincial level. A few strong independent Sejmiks could easily come together and pose a real threat to the national parties - in short : win-win for everyone.

The apathy shown by the national parties towards these elections is a huge problem.


Would be far better than the current situation where your local council member has no influence at all over national policy.


Can't be that hard - easiest way would be for the Gminas to elect someone to an "electoral college". That electoral college has to elect 30 members from among themselves - as simple as "most votes wins". If all 30 members don't get elected first time, then a second round and so on until all 30 seats are filled. Disallow candidates from voting for themselves, problem solved.

You should become a member of the flat earth society, they would quickly make you their spokesman.

Ah, resorting to insults when you have nothing intelligent to say.

What's it like waking up to the reality today that PO and the SLD effectively control Poland?

I voted yesterday. And strangely enough it wasn't for PiS either.

Sorry delph, but you are looking a this thing only from "big city" perspective, when "gmina" level in Poznan is a few hundred thousand people. In such gmina's indeed party emblem can have some meaning. But reality in gmina's below about one hundred thousand people is very different. Usually the heart of that entity is one or two small cities when everyone knows everyone, and I mean it literally. Parties emblems are really a small thing sometimes used to gain some popularity, but by no means important weapon in elections.

The other thing you are wrong about is that gmina level is not enough important for parties. The reality is that among all levels gmina is just behind a state level, because this is the place where the money are, and this is the place where winning party can give a lot of jobs for its trully supportes. So it is not that parties are not trying, they are but it is not so easy to PR things on mikro level, becuase either last mayor repaired your pavement or he didn't and all crosses in the world are not that important when you have a hole in the pavement for to long ;)

Our town President has been voted in again, this git has already held power for 12 years and will now be in power for another 4 years. Is that even legal?

The town I live in epitomizes corruption and nepotism. How many Mayors in the UK can boast five properties and a yatch? It is sick.

We are Poles ...

whoopps i meant, Poland, my bad.

Not insults... reality. You wrote so much nonsense in this thread that even your usual butt buddies won't support you on this one.

So, you think the current situation where local representatives have no line to Warsaw is satisfactory?

Crazy.

How's that whole 'gay denial' thing working out for you Greg? Fooling anybody yet?

It is legal. Only the the president's post is restricted to two consecutive terms, each lasting five years.


This remark is just silly. If you are talking of corruption and nepotism, you must prove a link between the possession of five properties and a yacht to the holding of his post by the Mayor. Please give the name of the town, we would then be able to verify your accusations perhaps.


Surprisingly or not surprisingly enough, the "big city" perspective as you paint it, hasn't work for Poznań at all. Ryszard Grobelny, an independent candidate, has won the first round of this local election with 49,5 per cent of the vote, leaving the "party" candidate, Grzegorz Ganowicz of the PO, far behind him with 21,5 per cent of the vote. Such a perspective doesn't work for many of the big cities, either:

Gdynia: Wojciech Szczurek, independent, 88 per cent of the vote, the record of the voter's support in this election;
Wrocław: Rafał Dutkiewicz, independent, 70 per cent of the vote;
Toruń, Kielce, Katowice, Rzeszów, Bielsko-Biała: in all of them the independent canditates have won in the first round which means they gained more than 50 per cent of the vote.

There are many more independent candidates who won in the first round, but didn't exceed the treshold of 50 per cent of the vote to be elected; they are much likely to win in the second tour on the 5th of December.

The thread strikes me as slightly old style. If you have a look at subsidiarity, you will see that those 2 levels are often bypassed in favour of supranational Brussels. Art 5 of the EU Amsterdam Treaty contained a Protocol. However, it has been diluted due to the drive towards more centralised control. This is the geopolitical side of things.

To answer the question, I don't think MPs spend that much time answering letters or representing constituents. It depends to what extent a community vibe is in place. MPs tend to have a better idea of what needs to be done in such places.