Polish right heads for election landslide

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1577355,00.html

Poland is set to take to take a sharp swing to the right in a general election tomorrow that may finish off the post-communist left as a political force.

In their first election since joining the EU last year, the Poles are certain to ditch the governing and sleaze-ridden Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party of former communists and elect two rival rightwing parties which are expected to form an unstable coalition.

The Polish right is poised for a landslide that could command a two-thirds parliamentary majority and empower it to rewrite the country's constitution. "It looks like a landslide for both parties," said Krzysztof Bobinski, head of a pro-European Warsaw thinktank. "The SLD could be left as a historic rump, meaning the end of communism in Poland."

A presidential election in a fortnight is tipped to complete the right-wing rout, with Donald Tusk, the leader of the Thatcherite Civic Platform party, replacing the former communist, Alexander Kwasniewski, head of state for the past decade. The Civic Platform is running equal in opinion polls with the conservative Law and Justice Party led by twin brothers, Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski.

[bluestateguy]

1. All I care about:

do they support the Iraq war or not?

[Gnostic]

2. Of course they do

Poland is and has been one of the biggest partners in the "coalition of the bribed and manipulated" since the beginning. This "right" political swing will only cement that, regardless of what the nation's people think or want. It's all about the money, and the more DC funnels into their open palms the more they'll do and say what DC tells them to.

Not really a concern anyway though. Their troop deployment is a practical joke as it is with the rest of the other members of the "coalition of the bribed". It's for show, not much more.

[Missy M]

3. The "Thatcherite" Civic Platform party, wanting total capitalism.....

for Poland, a 15% flat tax, private health care and more privatization is winning thus far. Look out Polish poor (and there are many), you are about to become poorer.

[leesa]

4. Poland makes yet another bad decision. It's their history.

[Yupster]

7. Bad decisions are their history?

What kind of comment is that?

It's a small country stting between Germany, Russia, and in the past Austria-Hungary.

I think huge invading neighbors has been more a cause of their unhappy history than their mistakes.

In 1772, Prussia and Austria were worried that they'd get in a war with Russia over Poland so they approached Russia with a proposal. Russia agreed so they each took a slice of Poland and were happy as Poland lost a quarter of its land in the first Polish Partitian. Within ten years there were two more partitians and Poland disappeared from the map altogether.

Poland was created in smaller form by Napolea and the acongress of Vienna, but was soon to disappear again divided between its three huge neighbors.

In WWI Pole fought Pole, drafted into the German and Austrian and Russian armies. If you remember the book "All Quiet on the Western Fron," Paul has a sargeant named Kat who teaches him how to stay alive in the trenches. Kat was short for Katchynski, a Pole drafted into the German army.

In World War II, Poland lost the largest percentage of its people of any country in the world. Again the germans and russians partitioned it. The Germans gave it Auschwitz, the Russians massacred 10,000 of its most educated officers at Katyn Wood.

At the end of the war Russia actually physically moved the whole Polish nation to the west about 200 miles. That was so it could keep the half of Poland it split with Germany. It gave Poland 200 miles of Germany instead in a trade.

I see why Poland would want to have protection from its giant Russian neighbor who has mistreated it so badly for hundreds of years, and I see why it wouldn't look west to Germany to counterbalance Russia. That has been tried and failed too many times.

So, that's wy Poland looks to America. I hope we treat it better than Russia and Germany have.

[NuttyFluffers]

11. Poland-Lithuania was *the* land power of Europe @ 15th cen.

this was before russia really came into existence, still just muscovy trying to survive mongols and golden horde. and germany wouldn't coalesce into a united force for centuries more. eastern europe for a very long time was theirs to lose. and they lost it. all. repeatedly.

poland dropped the ball, many, many, many times throughout their history. and they have that one example of gov't which has been roundly voted by historians as the worst possible gov't ever created in history. it comprised that if any bill or law of any sort was not passed unanimously then all gov't representatives would be fired, all previous made laws null and void, gov't would completely dissolve and be reformed from scratch -- to the same faulty mold requiring unanimity for everything.

nah, it's pretty safe to say just another blunder in polish gov't history. can't fight the truth of past actions.

[Igel]

14. And for Austria's and Germany's sake, it's a good thing Poland was

there.

A handy buffer for attacks from the east, and providing reinforcement for invasion from the south.

Didn't Sweden make rather a large splash for a while?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. Bad decision?

SLD is thoroughly corrupt and has contributed hugely to the horrible fucking mess that is Poland today. I can see why they'd want to be rid of SLD. The alternative may not be any better, but with 18% unemployment, it'd be difficult for it to be worse.

[vi5]

5. I was just in Poland last month...

My wife was born there and here family came here after martial law was declared. My father-in-law was a member of Solidarity and had been in jail because of it prior to being blacklisted, unable to find work and forced to leave the country.

He's fairly conservative but won't admit that he's a conservative or a republican. Thinks of himself as "independent". I mean how could a country that was liberated thanks in large part to the work of a labor union turn so far right?

Most of my wife's family don't seem conservative, at least by the standards we seem to employ here.

[lakeguy]

6. greed seems to turn people to the right. that and racisim, or some other

form of hate disguised as "concern" for their fellow man.

[mitchtv]

8. Bad news for Polish Gays

they have been a target for so called Catholics, and their political leaders; it appears it will get more rancorous. What do you expect they spawned JPIII?

[Endangered Specie]

9. So there isnt a moderate party in Poland?

You have two extreme rights and a post-communist "SLD" 'left' party.


and I complain about us not having a choice in elections.

[Laelth]

10. It's too bad for the Poles.

The Chimperor hasn't forgotten them.

-Laelth

[T_i_B]

12. Poland's former communists face election defeat by the Right

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/26/wpol26.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/26/ixportal.html

Poland's Left-wing government of reconstituted communists is facing the prospect of a severe defeat in the country's first general elections since EU membership.

Exit polls yesterday indicated that two centre-Right parties look about to sweep to power, sharing 55 per cent of the vote, with the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) on just 11. The swing to the Right continues a pattern in Poland, which has seen no government re-elected since the country's return to democracy in 1989.

If the final result confirms a heavy defeat for the SLD then it could be the death knell of an organisation born out of Poland's former Communist Party.

The government has been buffeted by countless allegations of corruption and in May 2004 the prime minister, Leszek Miller, stepped down amid a flurry of scandals.