Commentary
Politics
EU Should Enlarge, Even Out of Despair – COMMENTARY
3 October 2024
Election results are often about making fewer mistakes than having many shots on target. Law and Justice (PiS) has constantly tripped over its own legs, yet support for the ruling party remains at a very high level. This is a most demoralising phenomenon for democracy.
Poland will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday 13 October. If the elections had taken place in September, PiS would have entered parliament with 47 per cent of the vote and the Civil Coalition (KO) would again sit on the opposition benches due to a score of 27 per cent. The Left could have entered parliament with 13 per cent, while the Polish Coalition (PSL and Kukiz’15) and the far-right Confederation Freedom and Independence oscillated on the border of 5 per cent.
The September polling result of PiS was not a surprise, were it not for the fact that many scandals involving the most important people of the state have come to light.
There were ambiguities with regard to several building plots of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Jarosław Kaczyński tapes concerning the construction of a skyscraper, a sex worker affair and a plane affair of Sejm speaker Marek Kuchciński, the organised hate campaign at the Ministry of Justice and links between the President of the Supreme Audit Office, Marian Banaś, and the Krakow underworld.