Hallelujah! There is one piece of upbeat political news this week, and it comes to us direct from Poland — the beautiful land of Solidarity, Chopin, and kielbasa. The Polish people held an election, and the good guys won.

Poland’s so-called “Law and Justice” party — popularly referred to by its Polish acronym, PiS — has ruled the country’s parliament with a clear majority for the past eight years, headed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski — an illiberal, leftist, Russia-friendly hopeful for the seat of Prime Minister. Kaczynski has promised (among other things) that, if he were to be elected, all aid to Ukraine would immediately cease.

Okay, deep breath now, because this gets . . . well . . . complicated. Don’t worry if you don’t completely get it; I’m not even sure I do, but this is what I’ve read:

The election — which saw a record 74.4 percent turnout of voters — did not return Law and Justice to Parliament as the majority party, though it did receive the largest number of votes. In fact, neither of the two largest parties — Law and Justice nor Donald Tusk’s more liberal (and pro-Ukraine) Civic Coalition — has a clear majority in Parliament. However, Civic Coalition is joining with two smaller parties to then constitute a majority and gain control of the Parliament. They have also boosted their control of the upper chamber Senate, winning 66 seats to Law and Justice’s 34.

It is now up to President Andrzej Duda to nominate the candidate to be the next Prime Minister. Under the Polish Constitution, he has 30 days from the election within which to call a new Parliamentary session. He then must nominate a candidate for Prime Minister within 14 days of that time; and that nominee has an additional 14 days to win a vote of confidence in Parliament.

Stay with me . . . it’s not much farther now.

Traditionally, the President chooses the leader of the largest party to try to form a government; but in this case, since there is no chance of that being his Law and Justice party, he could delay the appointment of a Prime Minister and thus also the formation of a stable government. If that happens, the next Prime Minister is to be chosen by the Parliament.

If President Duda nevertheless sticks with Law and Justice (his favored party), it may be well into December before Civic Coalition has its chance to form a government. (This is beginning to sound like the election of a new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives . . . though for vastly different reasons.) There is apparently a way to speed up the process, by means of Tusk’s opposition party striking a coalition deal with the signatures of at least 231 Members of Parliament, thus confirming his party’s lock on forming a government.

Confused? I did warn you! But there’s more. The future for Poland is equally unclear, even assuming a victory for the Civic Coalition and the appointment of Mr. Tusk as Prime Minister. Because the Civic Coalition party will still have a difficult time passing legislation; it will not have the three-fifths of votes in Parliament required to override any vetoes by President Duda, and his term does not end until 2025. So their first job will be to purge Parliament of as many corrupt Law and Justice appointees as possible, replacing them with competent, unaligned individuals to give them the three-fifths they need. That won’t be easy.

Civic Coalition also promises to clean up Poland’s state media, which has become Law and Justice’s propaganda arm; to expose the rot in many of Poland’s non-governmental enterprises; and immediately to prosecute anyone and everyone guilty of “breaking the constitution and rule of law.” The level of corruption throughout Polish society during the Duda-Kaczynski years is almost incomprehensible, and will take time to be rooted out. But this election could prove to be the first step in the right direction; and every journey begins with that first brave step forward.

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But there is far more riding on that first step than the future of Poland alone. There have been leftist movements in other East European countries, such as Hungary, Slovakia, and possibly even the Czech Republic . . . not to mention the openly Putin-controlled Belarus. Russia’s westward march must be stopped. It has already generated all-out war in Ukraine, whose people are fighting valiantly to defeat Putin’s advances. The world needs Poland, and its neighbors, to stand up and resist before they, too, become Putin’s victims.

So to Donald Tusk and the members of his Civic Coalition party, and to those honest members of the Parliament of Poland: Powodzenia. The best of luck!

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Now, about that kielbasa I mentioned in the beginning, without which no proper Polish celebration would be complete . . . eat hearty! Your work has just begun.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/22/23