The Political Circus of Poland

Like Cincinnatus! Or even Piłsudski! :):):):)

Cincinnatus was regarded by the Romans, especially the aristocratic patrician class, as one of the heroes of early Rome and as a model of Roman virtue and simplicity.[citation needed] He was a persistent opponent of the plebeians.[2] When his son was convicted and condemned to death, Cincinnatus was forced to live in humble circumstances, working on his own small farm, until an invasion caused him to be called to serve Rome as dictator, an office which he immediately resigned after completing his task of defeating the rivaling tribes of the Aequians, Sabines, and Volscians. He lived approximately around the time that Lucius Junius Brutus did.

Admittedly PO is the perpetual poll-leader, but the percentages vary. In a TNS Polska poll taken in the fiurst half of September (presumably when the odium of the Amber Gold scandal finally hit home), PO had a backing of 28% and PiS trailed behind with 26%. SLd – 7%, and Palikot & PSL each 5%.

This is not the first time. In a May survey by MillwardBrown SMG/KRC PO enjoyed 29% and PiS 28%. It all depends what the situation will be like (economic crunch, new scams and scandals, etc.) as the election approaches.

For lanmguage practiuce: Gdyby wybory odbyły się w pierwszej połowie września, największym poparciem cieszyłaby się PO (28 proc.), a drugie miejsce zajęłoby PiS (26 proc.) - wynika z najnowszego sondażu TNS Polska. Do Sejmu weszłyby też: SLD (7 proc.), Ruch Palikota (5 proc.) i PSL (5 proc.).

How about you worry about soon to be the first Mormon president of your country; as a 'good' catholic you should have opinion of him and not of what's going on in Poland.

You need to remember that PO can easily go into coalition with any other opposition party except PiS - PiS cannot. The SLD, RP and PSL all have much more in common with PO than PiS.

Any reasonable political commentator can see that the biggest problem PiS have is a lack of coalition partners. To win an election, PiS would need at least 45% of the vote, if not slightly more.

RP simply could not go into a coalition with PiS: their electorate would never forgive them and never vote for them again.
PiS simply would not go into a coalition with the SLD: those guys are hated by the bitter twisted failures who represent a large proportion of PiS voters.

The Peasants will go into a coalition with pretty much anybody but it's notable that they didn't want to join the PiS coalition after the 2005 elections and since then PiS have become massively more unpopular, so it is very hard to see them joining a PiS coalition again.


More like 50.1%.

Cant argue with that. The constructive no-confidence vote being proposed by PiS might succeed because it enjoys the support of Palikot and SLD, but only if some PO members abstained, voted for the measure* or called in sick. The problem would be to assmble a governent afterwards. It is supposed to be non-political and techocratic cabinet, but in Poland that sounds highly unlikely. If Solidary Poland (Ziobro & Co.) had 12-15% backing, that might make a difference.

For instance if in the 2015 election both PiS and PO got 32% and SP got 15% that would constitute a PiS-SP coaliton of 47% and those two parties could form a government . If the PSL got 5% (as currently) that would give a PO-led coaliton only 37%. If they were power-hungry enough they might attempt adding the SLD (7%) which would give them 44%. If they also added Palikot that would push them ahead of PiS-SP with 49%. However, Tusk may be slippery but he's no fool and would probbaly be wary of an exotic coalition, mindful of the headaches it caused PiS (with LPR and Self-Defence).

*Anyone know if the Sejm monitors how whic M P votes, or is it truly secret balloting?
** Zdolność koalicyjna - what would that be in English -- coalitionability?

They would have SLD got 7 and Palikot 5 then the PO-led ci'+oaltiuon would have. , of the vote*Does anyone know whether the Sejm monitors how which MP votes, or is it truly a secret abllot.

.

a) SP would only get that kind of support by taking votes from PiS.
b) Duck boy would simply never allow a coalition to be formed with people he's had thrown out of the party.

I wonder just how tight a grip JK has on the party. Before now and the election (relative) moderates within PiS might wake up to the fact that he is nothing but an anachronism and a liability and get rid of him. As it stands, PiS is destined to remain howling from the periphery until he's gone anyway.

Exactly. When you consider that almost every single government in Poland has enjoyed the support of "liberals" in some way - there is mathematically no chance of PiS gaining power.


Well - not quite - because of the 5% rule needed to obtain parliamentary representation, 45% of the vote could be enough to get them 50% of the seats. But I'd say that 47-48% would be more likely. It's absolutely unprecedented in the 3rd Republic - even PO in the 2007 landslide only managed 41% despite the weak opposition.


Let's not forget that in Poland, as in Germany - to remove the Prime Minister in a constructive vote of no-confidence requires that an alternative candidate is proposed and voted in through a vote of confidence. The Prime Minister cannot be removed unless his successor is in place - which more or less guarantees that RP and PiS will never see eye to eye. It's also in RP's interest to keep PO in power - hence any candidate must be one which can push through issues important to RP. Ruch Palikota have also made it very clear that they only require three things from PO in order to give them parliamentary support. Let's also not forget that RP voters would never forgive Palikot if he removed Tusk in favour of a "PiS" man.


Except that SP are nowhere politically and their leader isn't even in the Sejm, not to mention that the only vote that SP get is stealing it from PiS - they have no new ideas.


I wonder too - but then, he's still in power despite numerous electoral disasters. I've had it explained to me by one political scientist that he managed to remove almost every single credible challenger in the party. There is no-one left to challenge him - unless Ziobro manages to persuade a significant amount of them to kick out Kaczynski and bring in Ziobro.

Either way, 2014 and 2015 look like being yet more electoral disasters for PiS.

In crisis times, anything may happen.

I hear a lot about a crisis in Poland these days. For me, as a foreigner who has made his home in Poland, I find the use of this word a little hyperbolic in the current circumstances.

A crisis, for me, is when there is imminent danger of economic or social collapse. A crisis is when the military parks tanks outside parliament. Or when there is hyperinflation and people starve in the streets. Perhaps I should refer to wikipedia to find a better definition, but I prefer to trust my half-century of experience.

Poland is a relatively stable European country which enjoys the membership, and through its membership, of the mutually agreed protection of other member states, not to mention NATO.

From where I sit, well fed, not too badly off, half cut, to be honest, I can't see a crisis. Maybe I should buy a TV.

Sorry, Orpheus. We are talking about the crisis in 2014, not now. Now we are experiencing a mere slow down.


Lucky you. :):):)


No!! The PF is enough. We will inform you faster than the evening news!

A crisis in 2014? Thanks for telling me, PF Delphic Oracle. It must be amazing to be able to see into the future!


I know the feeling. I'm knackered.
Time to obey my nagging wife, "Haven't you had enough? Come to bed! Bloody forum!"

No, nothing supernatural about it, it only takes a little intelligence, lol! :):):):)


Your wife is a real monster. Mine has never said anything like that for 7 years.

That's the problem with a 2-party system. Neither cnadidate is any good. Still I prefer a Mormon to a poser who attended church every Sunday with his fmaily during his campaign when the TV cameras were whirring away but after getting elected spends Sunday mornings at the golf course. How's that for hypocrisy? And many of my countrymen suspect him of being a crypto-Muslim. Something far worse than a Mormon.

Care to provide proof for that statement?


By "many", you mean "a few internet crackpots", right?

CNN has repoted it on several occaisons over the years. I don't recall the exact dates. But do you doubt it? Are you saying Obama is a devout Christian who never misses a Sunday in church and deny that he used it as a vote-getting gimmick to gain respectability?

I'm asking for sources, Polonius, not vague rubbish about crypto-Muslims.

This has been noticed by many Americans: ca.answers.yahoo/question/index?qid=20120820063129AABthTU

'many Americans', yet the most you can provide is a Yahoo Answers link?

Yet again Polonius, you've been caught lying.

Delph is wrong again. Veteran White Hosue reporter Keith Koffer, who knows the ins and outs of American politics far beeter than you or me, made teh following oibservations:

Obama Heads to Church – Again
by Keith Koffler on January 15, 2012, 12:16 pm

President Obama and his family headed out to church this morning for the third time in a month, the latest sign that the president may be using religion to boost his image as the campaign heats up.

Obama has rarely gone to church since becoming president. But last month he and his family walked across Lafayette Park in front of the White House to attend services at St. John’s Church. They attended Christmas services at a Marine Base in Hawaii and today were at Zion Baptist Church in DC.

While it’s possible the trips to church a part of some kind of renewed personal religious commitment, they are also consistent with Obama’s increased use of religious imagery as part of his public profile.

During two recent annual events – the televised Christmas in Washington gala and the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, Obama invoked specifically Christian themes he had shunned in the past.

The Christian narrative is appealing to a key demographic that fled Democrats en masse during the 2010 midterm election – white working class voters. Obama will need to bring as many members of this group back into the fold if he hopes to prevail in critical swing states like Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and other must-win states in the Midwest and the South.

You're such fun Polonius - you just conveniently forgot to say that Keith is a prominent Republican blogger, didn't you?

All these people can do is lie and use colourful but feeble rhetoric.

Well, given that Polonius yet again was asked to produce a reliable source - and all he provided was Yahoo answers and a commentary by a prominent right wing blogger (not a journalist, a blogger). Not exactly...reliable, is it?

Then again, we're used to Polonius making claims that he can't back up.

Your game is the curve ball or red herring -- start talking about soruces, evidence and various peripheral things without ever addressing the question. May seem clever to you but it's highly transparent and banal. You rarely provide a counterargument -- in this case 'proving' or providing the iron-clad evidence you demand of others that Obama is a weekly churchgoer and never prefers golf to Sudday worship. Unable to do so, you latch on to peripheral issues as to how the information was presented and who presented. It must be the common trait of those who idolise the GW clique.

I recall the GW gang criticisng Glemp a while back: 'The Cardinall is again attacking the West' they wsrote and provided a few of his quotes. Like Delph they preferred to ignore the merits of the argument and latched onto who was doing the criticising. That way they got off the hook (or so they thought!) and did not have to analyse whether the cirticsm was justified or not. It's enough to empahsise that a churchman or republican blogger was the source to completely skirt the issue at hand. If it had been a demcoratic blogger that would have made him credilbe, right?

Strange, one would think that you're trying to avoid providing a source for your assertations that Obama doesn't go to church and that he is a 'crypto-Muslim', whatever that is supposed to be.

You made the statement - we're asking you to back it up.


I'd prefer a politically neutral source, personally.


Yet again - more blanket statements.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Just 34% of Americans think U.S. President Barack Obama is a Christian, while 44% say they don't know Obama's religion and 11% say he is a Muslim.

gallup.com/poll/155315/many-americans-cant-name-obamas-religion.aspx

The Washington Times wrote:
American Catholics are mobilizing for the biggest campaign of mass civil disobedience since the end of segregation. U.S. Catholic bishops are calling on Catholics to defy the Obama administration's contraceptive mandate. This comes in addition to numerous lawsuits launched by 46 plaintiffs from dioceses, universities and hospitals against the administration's order that compels religious organizations to subsidize birth control, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate is an unprecedented assault upon the Catholic Church's conscience rights and religious freedom, blatantly usurping the First Amendment.

Given that 40% of Americans believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, that doesn't surprise me in the least.


Intriguing. Racking my brains!

What gives them the right to interfere with the democratic processes of a country?

It's their country. What right do aliens have to say what's good for America?