Insight
Four questions on the Polish parliamentary elections by Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska 10 October 2019
The Law and Justice (PiS) will probably remain the largest party after Sunday’s general election. If PiS secures a parliamentary majority it will continue its illiberal reforms. The party will, however, avoid fundamental clashes with the EU ahead of the presidential election in spring 2020. On Sunday October 13th, Poles will cast their vote in a general election. All polling suggests that the current governing party – the socially conservative and economically left-leaning Law and Justice (PiS) party – will remain the largest political bloc. The pertinent question is: how sweeping will PiS’ victory be and what implications will this have on Poland’s place in the European Union? Why is PiS polling so well despite its repeated clashes with the European Union? Political commentators in Poland and abroad agree that PiS’ popularity largely lies in its ability to exploit the social rifts in Polish society. Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor at the University of Sussex who runs a blog about the Polish politics, argues that many poorer and less-educated Poles feel that they have not sufficiently benefited from the 1989 transition to a free-market economy. Indeed, the privatisation of the Polish economy after 1989 has left various professional groups and towns in decline, contributing to a significant number of workers leaving Poland. In 2005, a year after Poland joined the EU, over one million Poles left their homes to work in another EU member-state. The social costs of domestic structural reforms were often neglected by previous governments, which instead focused on catching up with the West and solidifying Poland’s position within the transatlantic community. True, many of these efforts were successful: under the coalition government of Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform and the Polish Peasant Party from 2007 until 2015, Poland avoided recession during the financial crisis and the subsequent euro crisis and strengthened its position in the EU. But Poland’s impressive economic performance and influence abroad, which culminated in Tusk’s elevation to the office of the European Council president, did not always translate into better living standards for average Poles. Today, they are richer than the Greeks but still lag behind other older member-states including Spain. Before the 2015 election, PiS promised to take care of low-income Poles by introducing generous family benefits entitlements and lowering the retirement age. To their credit, PiS’ welfare programme has CER INSIGHT: Four questions on the Polish parliamentary elections 10 October 2019
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