Conservative Majority Party Wins Polish Elections
Polish President Andrzej Duda of the right leaning, ruling PIS party seen in a 2013 photo. Wikimedia Commons.
In an election with one of the largest voter turnouts since the fall of communism, Polish citizens voted for local and provincial offices on October 21. The results, released on October 25, show that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party secured a majority of seats in regional assemblies. However, PiS was unsuccessful in Poland’s major cities, such as Warsaw and Krakow, which were instead won by the opposition coalition that includes the Civic Platform and Modern parties.
This election represents the first test of Poland’s political identity since the conservative and nationalist PiS rose to power in 2015. According to the National Electoral Commission, PiS won 254 seats in regional assemblies. The opposition coalition won 194 seats. The rural Polish People’s Party claimed 70 seats.
The opposition coalition managed to maintain power in several major cities in Poland. PiS “failed to convince the liberal, metropolitan electorates that Law and Justice is a more moderate party,” claimed political scientist Rafal Chwedoruk of Warsaw University.
However, Law and Justice secured the majority in six out of sixteen regions, which is five more than it controlled before the elections. This demonstrates that, despite the hopes of those in opposition, the nationalist party has not diminished in popularity since the 2015 presidential elections, especially in deeply religious and family-oriented rural communities.
Polish President Andrzej Duda’s PiS identifies itself as a Eurosceptic, right-leaning party. It supports conservative Christian values in the majority-Catholic country. The party has restrained freedom of the press since gaining power. Many its actions have been seen as anti-EU, even though the EU funds almost 60 percent of Poland’s public expenditures.
Most recently, Poland has been criticized by the EU for its judicial reforms. Following the government’s decision to lower the mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices, ousting almost 40 percent of the court’s judges, Poland risked losing its voting rights in the EU. PiS officials stated that the legal changes are necessary reforms to an inefficient system.
These local elections are seen by some as foreshadowing of the results of the upcoming spring 2019 and fall 2019 parliamentary elections and the 2020 presidential elections. Poland is one of many countries currently reckoning with political parties playing on identity politics and growing nationalist sentiments among citizens. Although there is no way to be sure what will occur in 2019 and 2020, these local elections point to the continued dominance of nationalism in Poland.