Elections
There are eight months left until the elections. The two-term ruling team of the good change, as they so beautifully let themselves be called, but in reality a gang of amateurs, embezzlers and manipulators, is still holding strong in the polls.
They won their first term in 2015 with 37.58 percent of the votes, which gave them 51% of the seats in the Sejm. In the next elections in 2019, they won 43.59 percent of the votes, which translated into an identical 51% of the seats in the Sejm.
In recent months, their support has remained stable at 34 percent, give or take one or two percentage points, which is astonishing when you look at the scale of the damage they have done to this country, the money they have siphoned off into their pockets, the high prices and the conflicts with the European Union. I find it hard to understand how half a grand for a child, a thirteenth pension and hungry jokes about getting up from your knees can turn off common sense in so many of my compatriots.
In this situation, it will be extremely difficult to remove the thieves from the trough. Especially since no reasonable person has any doubt that to maintain power they will use the entire apparatus of the state, including the propaganda of state media, and that as their main tool they will not hesitate to use fraud and manipulation from the first day of the campaign to the last day at the polls.
In this context, the approach of the opposition parties is surprising. In the situation that Poland finds itself in, their bloody duty and the only reasonable way to remove Kaczyński from power is full cooperation, speaking with one voice and creating one electoral bloc.
Instead, we have rivalry in the opposition and outdoing each other in declarations of who hates PiS more. They do not understand that even if they go to the elections separately and win a total of just over 50% of the seats, their victory will be fragile, they will not be able to overturn Duda's veto and instead of cleaning up after the government of good change, they will give us four more years of mess and helplessness. They do not understand that strength lies in unity and that going to the elections together does not have to mean that they will lose their distinctiveness and independence in front of the voters.
I have a grudge against Hołownia for being afraid of being marginalized by Tusk and for talking nonsense about how going to the polls separately will give everyone more. It's not true.
I have a grudge against Tusk, because as the leader of the largest party, he does not want to take responsibility for creating a single bloc. The largest must give up the most so that a compromise can be reached, and it is impossible to build a coalition based on the hegemony of the large and the suppression of the small.
There are 460 members of parliament in the Polish Sejm. Half, or 230 members, are needed to form a government. Three-fifths, or 276 members (60%), are needed to overturn a presidential veto. Two-thirds, or 307 members (67%), are needed to change the constitution.
The electoral law in force in Poland is constructed in such a way that it gives a bonus to larger parties and punishes small ones for being small. For example, in the 2019 elections, PiS received a bonus of over 6 percentage points, because it obtained 51% of the seats, with almost 45% of the votes collected. The Civic Coalition's bonus was almost 2 percentage points, the SLD received a penalty of almost 2 percentage points, the PSL a penalty of 2 percentage points, and the Confederation a penalty of over 4 percentage points.
This means that the opposition should do everything to go to the elections together. The opposition will receive more votes the fewer opposition lists there are.
For example, let's take one of the last election polls, in which PiS received 34.4%, KO - 27.1%, Left - 9.2%, Polska 2050 - 7.5%, Confederation - 7.4%, PSL - 6.6%. If all four opposition parties went to the elections separately, they would together collect 237 seats - a fragile majority with four opposition lists.
If Hołownia had created one list with Kosiniak-Kamysz, i.e. the number of electoral lists would have been three, the opposition would have won 242 seats together.
If KO went together with the Left and Polska 2050 went together with PSL, i.e. we would have two opposition lists, the opposition would win 252 seats together.
And if a single electoral list of the entire opposition were created, the number of opposition seats would be 264.
Skeptics will say that with a joint list, the number of votes for one list may be smaller than the sum of votes for individual parties, because some voters will come to the conclusion that they do not want to vote for some new, uncommunicative creation. Well, I will say that the number of votes for one list will just as well be greater than the sum of votes for individual parties, because voters will give such a list a bonus for unity, i.e. they will be more willing to vote for united parties than for parties running in separate elections.
In eight months we will see if the opposition comes to its senses. However, I am increasingly afraid that, thanks to our unwise opposition, we may be facing a third term of the milking change.
