Comments on elections in Poland

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I would like to hear how do you people view recent elections that took place in Poland.
What are your oppinions about new goverment and 2 candidates for president?

 

From what I heard the conservatives won which is a bit a double egded sword for me. Economically I think it's good but in terms of loosing up the abortion laws I think it's very bad. Much more than that I can't really say since I have not read so much about the issue.

 

There is not too much information available, but as long as Poland are not going for the Northern Ireland approach - i.e. vote for your favourit sectarian extremist party, then you should be okay!

 

Perhaps the new elected government could stimulate the Polish economy a bit, so that your teenagers don't have to come here anymore to loot stores, steal cars, and rob old people. that would be a good start.

 

I must say that I'm offended by your post There are no robbers, thieves in your country??
You can't say that every teenager that goes abroad is a thief.

 

No need to take personal offense, i wasn't adressing anyone in particular. All i know is that we're being flooded by Polish and Lithuanian thugs and hoodlums. They stay for about a week in some sleezy motel, and at night they go on their tour of pillaging jewelry, clothing, and perfume stores, or whatever else they can get their hands on, and if they're lucky, they leave for Poland with a car full of loot at the end of the week, or they get busted and sent back without any proper punishment. It was all over the news a short while ago, in only a matter of months they arrested somewhat 80 groups of Polish and Lithuanian teenagers, who were all good for around 60 robberies within one week.

Sure we have our own criminals here, that's why we could do without any trash from abroad. They should all be stopped and sent back to whereever it is they come from right at the border. But that's pretty much impossible now, since we had to become one big happy European family.

 

OK maybe I rushed with emotions. To be sure the proble you're talking about is completly unknown to me. There are no such information in polish media.
Let's just go back to topic

 

The Sejm elections were pretty good I think:
PiS-159 seats
PO-145 seats
SLD-56 seats
Samoobrona-44 seats
LPR-35 seats
PSL-20 seats
The commies only had 11% of the total seats, and the right wing parties will take about 75% of the total, excluding the PSL.
As for the presidential run, both Donald Tusk and Lech Kaczynski are somewhat right wing. Kaczynski is a bigger supporter of a socially secure state, but he is also more conservative.
My Polack friends are glad that Tusk will probably win, but one of them is biased because he is from Gdansk.
My favourite candidate is Lepper though, but he has no chance.
Anyway, whoever wins I am fairly satisfied. Although both are anti-Russian, at least both claimed wanting to keep Poland Polish and Christian, and mentioned tough immigration policies should be taken not to follow the bad examples of France or England.
All in all, as long as Poland does not become like Holland I will be glad.

 

Nuts. Oh well, it could've been worse. As long as they don't do the mistakes that Ireland did, I'm happy.

 

@Svyatoslav

What do you mean ? PSL is nearly as much from "right wing" as SLD...

You are joking, right ?...Lepper is a leftist puppet...he is only good at breaking the law.

I hope so...and before you ask, I'm from Poland.

 

And "how" is Holland according to you fellas ?

 

Wait, you mean that it isn't a den of evil and villany?

Just do what I've done, and learn to ignore mantra posters.

 

Sorry, I guess I did not express myself well. I meant to say that PSL is probably a bit more on the "far right" wing - at least that is how some people described them to me. I was talking more about average right wing parties. Am I right, or is the PSL not anymore rightist than the other parties?

Oh really? I thought he was some kind of Nationalist? Anyway, he is pro-Russian, which is why I support him in a way.
Maybe he is only a clow like our zhidnovsky.

It is my general outlook that most Polack think like you, which is amazing to me. Am I right to assume that?
Regards.

 

From my point of view - the only right wing party in Poland is UPR... ...
PO is somewhere in the middle, but because it's mostly only slightly colourized ex-UW, I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before they show their true "leftist" face. The rest from political scene here is more or less leftist, be it LPR, PiS (more or less catholic), or SLD, UP...(mostly atheists), or PSL, Samoobrona...(difficult to say - religious, or not).

Only Populist... ...and yes - he is only a clown that most people joke about.

(proper english form is "Poles" I guess... )

Unfortunately, I'm afraid no. I always vote for UPR, which means I'm in marginal minority.

 

Every country has its quirks and neither Holland nor Poland is an exception. If you were to pull my tongue, I would be forced to name euthanasia, abortion and drug laws. On the other hand, one can't but like you Dutch folks.

Oh, BTW, any Polish citizens, teenagers or not, caught thieving in Holland should be judged there and go to prison there (this won't likely happen because it's more likely for criminals to be sentenced over there and sit the term in their own country -- there are such agreements in place pretty much everywhere). In case of teenagers, wonder how their "tolerant" parents would react to summons from a Dutch court.

Let's also ignore name-calling posters and we'll all be fine.

Go, Korwin!

As for the two surviving president candidates:

Kaczynski is a law professor and a post-Solidarity right-wing kind of socialist. You're probably rolling your eyes at this point, but you "haven't been here". If you had seen how privatisation and reprivatisation was handled, as well as the way social matters approached by the last leftist government (legally elected by our wonderful voters ), you would cease to wonder. At this point, cutting social expenses is not a matter of stopping the development of a left-wing kind of welfare state. It's a matter of Christian values at this point, with many people, especially retirees being unable to afford medicines or even food (other than bread or potatoes), while all the freaking leftist politicians drive their asses around in luxurious cars and stash gigantic benefits. This doesn't mean that Kaczynski's pals haven't stashed massive bonuses during his tenure as the mayor of the capital city. Kaczynski has some semi-socialist social ideas but he's a right-winger on ethical matters and not a big fan of intermingling business with politics.

All the talk about Christian values is one thing, but in his TV election advert, his married daughter was showing off her cleavage all the time. Basically, when they were showing off her child and babbling about family values, she was bending over the child with said big cleavage. She generally did a lot of bending over during that ad, as I said. There's no way Kaczynski could have possibly had no say in the matter, so figures.

Tusk: A holder of Master's in history, man from nowhere, invisible leader of the second most supported (by a next to insignificant difference) political party. He has only been the vice-chairman of both houses of parliament (one each time), but he did practically nothing as the representative of his constituents (no interpelations, participated in a grand total of three debates). Basically, a guy after the manner of Kwasniewski (the current godfather... I mean, president). He just shuts up in the country where politicians lose support when they start talking too much. He's trying to pass himself as an honourable man but he's broken his word (not like Kaczynski hasn't) and as a man who isn't involved in games -- although the fact that he's a shadow player is pretty obvious. He also tries to show himself as a Catholic with some devotion to Christian values, but he's only recently got a church marriage (having been married civilly for what... two decades?) , he opposed the idea of religion in public life, voted against the concordate with the Vatican, he supported abortion on demand, he took part in overthrowing the government of PM Olszewski who decided to make public the list of commie police/intelligence confidents occupying important positions in administration and politics at that time (he basically allied himself with commies to achieve that purpose, as did the then president Walesa). After the parliament elections, he pressured on the leader of the winning party (another Kaczynski, twin brother) to "take responsibility for Poland". Thing is, the difference between his party and Kaczynski's party was just 3% and a couple of seats and it's obvious the parties are going to be practically equal in the government. In short, when Tusk pressured on the winners to take responsibility, it was because he wanted to shift the potential blame for everything on the winners, so that his party could pretend to be the opposition within the government and not responsible for its bad decisions. Also, it was a masterful tactical move on his party's part to say the winners should dictate who takes what ministry or office instead of bargaining -- that way, PO (Tusk's party) will be able to say "hey, it was PiS who awarded the seats", while because of the mere 3% difference, PiS simply has to nominate guys from PO.

In short: both guys suck and we're only going to see who one of them really is after he gets elected.

[ October 12, 2005, 12:47: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Don't worry, I wasn't talking about you, I'm talking about those who say the exact same thing in pretty much every post. You at least provides some variation.

 

I see. Well, the situation is kinda bad then. I thought both were better than most Western politicians though.
I guess we will have to wait and see.
PS: I dont mean any offense by Polack. It is just that Pole sounds pretty stupid to me.
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EDIT:
Polish presidential race gets personal
Date: 12/10/05


Poland's presidential race turned personal when frontrunner Donald Tusk was forced to deny that his grandfather had served in Nazi Germany's army during World War II.

Rival candidate Lech Kaczynski's campaign manager, Jacek Kurski, told a newspaper that Tusk should clarify his grandfather's past and that "serious sources" had said he had volunteered to join the Wehrmacht.

Any hints of collaboration with Nazi Germany are highly damaging in Poland, which was occupied by Hitler's troops and lost millions of citizens during the war.

"My rival and his associates have dealt a blow which was meant to hurt the most - they attacked the good name of my close relatives, who are no longer with us," Tusk told a campaign rally.

His spokesman gave reporters copies of documents showing that both of Tusk's grandfathers were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps after the war broke out.

"This is a disgusting lie. Lech Kaczynski's campaign has descended into the gutter," Tusk's spokesman, Jacek Protasiewicz, said.

Kaczynski said he was prepared to apologise if the accusations were wrong.

"If someone was in fact harmed, then if need be I'll apologise, though I cannot be personally responsible for what happened," he told a news conference.

Tusk, a free-market enthusiast, finished the first round of the presidential election on Sunday just ahead of the conservative Kaczynski and the two will compete in a run-off on October 23.

Two opinion polls showed Tusk with a lead of about 10 points. The race has grown increasingly hostile as the final vote draws closer, with both camps accusing their rivals of lies and mud-slinging.

[ October 13, 2005, 03:42: Message edited by: Svyatoslav ]

 

The silece before the president elections will begin in 1 hour. And on Monday we will know who would be a president.

 

Tusk's grandfathers were indeed in concentration camps except at least one of them was indeed in Wehrmacht, although not as a volunteer, contrary to what Kurski claimed. It seems like more members of Tusk's family had been in Wehrmacht, which wouldn't normally be relevant, given they are obviously not he but separate and long dead persons, except for the common legend about Tusk coming from such a very Polish family, attached to Polish traditions.

@Rutkowski: No problem. I see what you mean and you see what I do... guess it's fine. Sorry if I made you feel bad about it.

 

Well, guys, Kaczynski seems to be winning 53% to 46%.