Poland's populist Law and Justice party win second term in power

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/poland-populist-law-and-justice-party-increases-majority

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Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party appears to have won a second term in power, final results from Sunday’s parliamentary election showed, but its drive to push through its agenda may be hampered by its loss of the upper house.

What had earlier looked like a clearcut victory for PiS morphed into a closer than expected contest for the more powerful lower house and an opposition win in the upper house, dealing a blow to the socially conservative party that had aimed for a big enough majority to change the constitution.

Election results give hope to opposition in Poland and Hungary

Coming on the day that the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a key PiS ally, experienced his first election defeat in about a decade, losing control of the capital Budapest, Sunday’s worse than predicted result in Warsaw marked a setback for nationalists across the EU who want to wrest back power from Brussels.

In the lower house, the Sejm, PiS won just under 44% of Sunday’s vote, up from 38% in 2015, Poland’s electoral commission said. Under the Polish system for seat distribution, the party would still have a majority , but only a few seats more than before.

In the 100-seat upper house, the Senate, the opposition claimed victory, with the centrist Civic Coalition publishing on Twitter the names of 51 opposition members and allies who had won seats.

“Senate won back. Thanks to the agreement of opposition parties, the opposition will have the majority in the Senate,” the leader of one opposition party Katarzyna Lubnauer tweeted.

Control of the senate would allow the opposition to block or delay legislation proposed by PiS and give it a say on nominations to some of Poland’s highest institutions such as the civil rights ombudsman.

During its first term in power, PiS gained a reputation for pushing through legislation at breakneck speed, with hastily called late-night sittings of the Sejm,followed by quick approval from the upper house.

PiS’s political strategy has been to combine a big increase in social spending in certain areas with nationalist and traditionalist rhetoric and an uncompromising authoritarian political style that has exacerbated existing divisions in Polish society.

Its increases in welfare spending were made against the backdrop of a booming economy and record consumer confidence. A central issue in these elections was the flagship child benefit programme 500+, which gives families 500 zloty (£100) a month per child. The opposition Civic Platform had opposed the policy before the 2015 parliamentary elections, arguing that it was unaffordable. But the party has since said it would retain the 500+ if elected. Observers argue that this U-turn and PiS’s ability to deliver the programme may have undermined the opposition’s credibility among voters.Sunday’s PiS victory could also prove a headache for Brussels and several European capitals. In government, the party has been an uncompromising and at times exasperating EU member, as illustrated by a farcical episode in 2017 when it tried to torpedo the re-election of Donald Tusk, a former leader of Civic Platform, as president of the European council. For years, the European commission has sparred with Warsaw over PiS’s attempts to assert direct control over the Polish judiciary, with several cases referred to the European court of justice. Under PiS, Poland has emerged as an active opponent of the liberal democratic values that underpin the EU, with European diplomats admitting in private that many in Brussels had hoped the problem would be taken out of their hands by Polish voters. “There was a hope that PiS would lose, but that has not materialised,” said Piotr Buras, the director of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank. “This is not just an issue for Brussels, but for several European capitals; they will have to deal with an emboldened partner.

“The dilemma is that Poland under PiS is already a semi-authoritarian regime and it is only likely to deteriorate further. There will be a temptation to turn a blind eye to abuses and normalise relations, but this could come at a cost to their red lines on democratic values.”