Poland: News, Politics, etc.

To decrease number of Polish related derails at other thread (often instigated by me), I shall create a thread where you can discuss Poland related issues or ask questions, or move any future de-rails if you deem it worthy to continue it here.

Can you tell me about Polish politics? What are the major parties, how are governments formed, who is the head of state and how much power do they have, is there corruption, what are some of the issues that voters seem most interested in, how many percent of MPs and ministers are women, what do the parties think of the EU... stuff like that.

Naturally, but prepare for long walls of text. :) I think I will cover each major issue in a separate posts which are still going to be long.

I. Major political parties

Generally, our political scene is dominated by the political right divided into two major parties, Civic Platform and Law and Justice. The former is party currently forming the bulk of our government (along with middling party called Polish People's Party) and the latter is biggest party in the opposition.

The Civic Platform combines ordoliberal stances on the economy with social conservative stances on social and ethical issues, including opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, soft drug decriminalisation, euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, removal of crosses and other religious symbols in schools and public places, and partially to wide availability of in vitro fertilisation. On the other hand, there is growing "centrist" faction favoring progressive modernisation of country, social justice, social tolerance (especially civil pacts of solidarity), a social market economy, Flexicurity and environmental sustainability. The party also wants to criminalise gambling and supports religious education in schools. Other socially conservative stances of the party include voting to ban designer drugs and amending the penal code to introduce mandatory chemical castration of pedophiles. Core proposals from the party programme in the past included privatisation of the remaining public sectors of Polish economy, direct elections of mayors and regional governors, the first-past-the-post electoral system instead of proportional representation, labor law reform, independence over monetary policy by the National Bank of Poland, a 15% flat tax, and the decentralization of the state

The Law and Justice's programme is dominated by anti-corruption, conservative, law and order agenda. It has embraced economic interventionism, while maintaining a socially conservative stance that moved in 2005 towards the Catholic Church; the party's Catholic-nationalist wing split off in 2011 to form United Poland. The party is soft eurosceptic; Pi S is a member of the anti-federalist Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists and its eleven ME Ps sit in the ECR Group. Initially Law and Justice was broadly pro-market, although less so than the Civic Platform. It has adopted the social market economy rhetoric of western European Christian democratic parties. In the 2005 election, the party shifted to the protectionist left on economics. Unlike Civic Platform, whose emphasis is the economy, Law and Justice's focus is fighting corruption. On foreign policy, it is Atlanticist and less supportive of European integration than Civic Platform. The party is soft eurosceptic, and opposes a federal Europe. In its campaigns, it emphasises that the European Union should '[serve] Poland and not the other way around'. It is a member of the anti-federalist Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, having previously been a part of the Alliance for Europe of the Nations and, before that, the European People's Party.

II. Minor parties (those with up to 10 % of seats in the parliament)

Democratic Left Alliance - social democratic party that originated from communist movement. It can be classified as left-wing, however, during the 1990s, it managed to attract voters from the pro-market and even right-wing camp. The main support for SLD came from middle-rank state sector employees, retired people, former PZPR and OPZZ members and those who were unlikely to be frequent church-goers.

Polish People's Party - The party's platform is strongly based around agrarianism. Economically, the party advocates state interventionism (especially in agriculture), and "slower privatization" (although it is not against privatization). On social and ethical issues, PSL opposes abortion, same-sex marriage/civil unions, soft drug decriminalization, euthanasia and death penalty. It also supports mandatory public (state) education and publicly funded health care.

Palikot's Movement - It wants to end religious education in state schools, end state subsidies of churches, legalize abortion on demand, give out free condoms, allow same-sex civil unions, switch to the Mixed-member proportional representation system, reform the Social Security Agency, abolish the Senate, legalize cannabis and implement flat taxes.

United Poland - The party is very socially conservative. It is opposed to abortion and euthanasia, and supports extending maternity leave to nine months. Its staunch opposition to gay marriage was cited as a main reason it left the ECR group in the European Parliament. Economically, the SP has called for a 'fat cat' tax on big companies, including supermarkets, and backs higher taxes on those that earn over 10,000 złotych (€2,400) a month. It opposes the construction of a nuclear power plant in Poland.

(I'm busy, but I'll update the post soon, so please be patient :) )

edited 17th Apr '13 2:58:06 AM by CaptainKatsura

III. Forming the government

There are three stages possible when it comes to forming government. It usually ends at the first stage.

1. The President appoints by custom the leader of party who got largest number of votes. S/He must be approved by the Sejm, lower branch of parliament, by 3/5 votes in presence of at least half of M Ps plus one.

2. If it he is not approved, the Sejm itself chooses a Prime Minister and approves him/her through similar voting procedure

3. In very unlikely case the Sejm doesn't approve the candidate it appointed itself, President has right to appoint any citizen, and the Sejm has to approve or it gets disbanded and new elections are held.

Take your time with this. If I were in a hurry to learn this stuff I would go on a Wiki Walk in The Other Wiki.

So, since Katsura left this thread fallow, I'm gonna tell you a fun story in the meantime.

So, the city council of the city of Warsaw had to name a roundabout (or how do you call that circular streets meet things).

First proposal came from the left-wing councilors (SLD and Palikot's), who proposed to name it after E. Gierek, a communist first secretary from the Seventies. Gierek has a bit of a better reputation than most commies, because he borrowed a lot of money (Poland paid off his debts only like the last year) and so the standard of life slightly improved in his time.

After everyone else stopped cringing, there was a proposal (by a PiS councilor) to honour Thatcher. However, the law says five years need to pass since the death of a person for a street to be named after her, so in the end it couldn't have been Thatcher anyway, which everyone knew but it still didn't stop them from suggesting her.

Then, some other folks — some sort of municipal commission for finding out good names — solved the conundrum by decreeing that the place is too ugly anyway to "honour" anyone with it. Which, by the way, means that Thatcher lucked out in the aesthetics department, while, for example, Reagan already got an ugly junction of his own. And so, in the end, everybody agreed to a compromise solution of naming it after the nearby railway station.

I didn't left this thread because I had choice Moving out to other dorm room plus study reports for uni.

Good thing it wasn't named after Thatcher. She wasn't particularly good governor of her own country. And sympathised with dictators.

So since Katsura is busy (although apparently not enough to stop posting in other threads), I'll say I've read an interesting article recently. A certain historian wrote a book on Polish politics of the last two decades, the leading thesis is that it's basically a history of the primary division. The article is a discussion of that book.

At first, the book states, it was post-communism versus post-resistance. The conflict involved such affairs as whether the Former Regime Personnel should be excluded from the workings of the democratic state, or just left be. No post-Solidarity party, even the powerful left-liberals (one of the dominant parties back in the day), entered a coalition with the Party's remnant (now SLD). Although some members of the left-liberals called for "historical compromise", in the end even their party relented. In turn, SLD appealed to Nostalgia Filter and accused the opponents of leading a witch-hunt.

This division lasted until ~2005, when SLD went down after a monumental corruption scandal. The article states that, for example, PiS prepared for a showdown along the old lines, but the scandal pretty much ruined the viability of the left as the dominant party. As it turned out PiS would have to compete with other post-Solidarity politicians — PO, which IIRC split off the left-liberals mentioned above — the division evolved into "Poland of Solidarity" (conservative, socially-minded, more-or-less nationalist) and "Liberal Poland" (globalist, progressive, free-market). This division was, however, a bit more vague: PiS arguably had more liberal economic policy than PO has — thus the joke that in Poland, liberals raise taxes while socialists lower them.

The book claims that nowadays the main line of contention is the attitude towards the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, but the article is somewhat skeptical. It's still mostly the right-wing opposition that complains about the crash's aftermath, and the ruling party and its supporters who claim it's as good as it could get, but the attitudes actually aren't that clear-cut along political lines.

I have limited time, so I have to end here; if you have questions, go ahead, but I'll be able to answer after a while. Although someone else may respond to them in the meantime.

(I can make some edits though. By the way, I was absent because of the long weekend. Nine-day-long weekend. That's when the 1st and 3rd of May fall in the middle of the week.)

edited 5th May '13 1:56:23 AM by lordGacek

I wonder how do you know since I don't see you posting in them :p

Now about who is the head of state and how much power he wields:

Our current president is Bronisław Komorowski.

The President has a free choice in selecting the Prime Minister, yet in practice he usually gives the task of forming a new government to a politician supported by the political party with the majority of seats in the Sejm (usually, though not always, it is the leader of that political party).

The President has the right to initiate the legislative process. He also has the opportunity to directly influence it by using his veto to stop a bill; however, his veto can be overruled by a three-fifths majority vote in the presence of at least half of the statutory number of members of the Sejm (230).

Before signing a bill into law, the President can also ask the Constitutional Tribunal to verify its compliance with the Constitution, which in practice bears a decisive influence on the legislative process. In his role as supreme representative of the Polish state, the President has power to ratify and revoke international agreements, nominates and recalls ambassadors, and formally accepts the accreditations of representatives of other states. The President also makes decisions on award of highest academic titles, as well as state distinctions and orders. In addition, he has the right of clemency, viz. he can dismiss final court verdicts (in practice, the President consults such decisions with the Minister of Justice).

The President is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces; he appoints the Chief of the General Staff and the commanders of all of the service branches; in wartime he nominates the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and can order a general mobilization. The President performs his duties with the help of the following offices: the Chancellery of the President, the Office of National Security, and the Body of Advisors to the President.

• bumping the thread*

there is recently here shitstorm over the ban of ritual slaughter of cattle. People for the ban argue it is enacted for ethical reasons to stop cruel ways of killing animals. People against argue that ban may impact Polish exports of meat.

Local Jewish and Muslim minority call for compromise when it comes to the ban, such as importing the meat prepared in accordance to those religious customs from abroad (some of supporters of the ban agree), whereas Jews from USA went bonkers and ramble that Poland is re-enacting Nazi policies.

Who is Magdalena Ogorek and how does she matter?

She's an independent candidate for president, supported by SLD - Democratic Left Alliance, though after her recent interwiev SLD has been pissed of at her and says it won't finance her campaign anymore. Recently a poll estimated that she had around 4% of support.

edited 18th Apr '15 3:07:56 PM by SecondKaitenhammer

I saw her at Spanish RT asking for removal of sanctions to Russia.

I was quite surprised by how young she seems.

Who are the serious candidates, and what powers does the President really have?

Ogórek is 36 years old.

As for other candidates it looks like only the current president Komorowski, supported by Civic Platform, and candidate of Law and Justice, Adrzej Duda, have any real chances of winning the elections.

The President can appoint the Prime Minister if he/she so desires. The President has the right to initiate the legislative process and he/she can also directly influence it by using his/her veto to stop a bill, however the veto can be overturned by 3/5 majority vote with half of the statutory number of members of the Sejm (230) present. More can be read on wiki.

Also I have a suggestion: what about renaming this thread to "The General Polish Thread"?

People are bound to confuse it for a thread about the smoothing and shining of harsh surfaces.

Hah! Then what about "The General Poland Thread"

edited 18th Apr '15 3:14:32 PM by SecondKaitenhammer

Is the title I've offered up acceptable?

yes. that iz mucho better! eliminate kebab!

Needs more... luster...

edited 18th Apr '15 3:24:51 PM by TheHandle

"All Issues Polish" — Well, I suppose they do...

I think it could do with polishing up a bit.

'Poland News & Politics Thread'?

(Poland or Poland's?)

How about now?

Fine by me.

Andrzej Duda has been chosen as a president.