Official results show Law and Justice wins Polish election

For nearly a decade, Poland has been Europe’s great exception.

Yet Law and Justice has to admit that Poland has done very well out of the EU.

If the party falls short of a majority, the formation of the government could take longer, and create uncertainty over who might be willing to join in a coalition.

Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, the Civic Platform (PO) leader who has governed Poland for a year, conceded defeat Sunday, Radio Poland reports.

This means that the party will not be able to change laws as easily as Orbán’s Fidesz party has been able to do, because Poland, like Hungary, requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority for constitutional changes.

Poland is also likely to make common cause with Britain in opposing any further European integration. Marek Belka, the caustic governor of the National Bank of Poland, whose term ends next year, is unlikely to be displeased that the political impetus for euro membership has been ebbing fast – and, under Kaczynski, is likely to be snuffed out altogether.

Civic Platform, which Tusk led for years, has weakened considerably without him at the helm. It has also avoided the angry politics that have swept across many countries – until now.

The various parties representing Poland’s post-communist Left have collectively collapsed.

Kaczynski, a former prime minister, leads the party but has tapped Beata Szydlo, 52, to be the PiS’s choice for prime minister. You see this because of the way voters are capable of moving from one small party to another. It has escaped the economic crisis that has gripped much of the rest of Europe, enjoying strong growth and booming exports while its neighbours collapsed into unemployment and debt. The result of this was, it argues, a failure to conduct a sufficiently active eastern policy. Ties became strained with the country’s European partners, particularly Germany, with Kaczynski focusing heavily on Poland’s historical grievances against Germany and Russian Federation.

While Poland has remained critical of Russia’s increased military activity around the world and in Ukraine, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation missile defence facility in Poland is yet to be opened despite ongoing talks about the project since 2010. But Law & Justice is more hardline and less diplomatic, especially since the 2010 plane crash in which Mr. Kaczyński’s twin brother, Lech, died along with dozens of government officials.

Now, I think, there should be a pivot of Law and Justice government, as well as experts on the Belarusian direction, who are abundant in this party, to a more active support of the democratic movement in Belarus. there are no doubts about that – it could be stated with certainity. The outgoing Civic Platform-led government tried to strike a balance between competing domestic and global pressures. While it played well with the traditional Law & Justice electorate, how Szydlo will perform overseas as the European Union faces a refugee crisis and a growing divide between east and west is more of a wildcard. Law and Justice’s anti-immigrant stance looks likely to set it at odds with the European Commission over migrant quotas in future. Arguably one of Poland’s most well-known politicians, he is regarded by many as a staunch defender of Catholic values but remains a divisive figure in Polish politics. Whereas Germany and France had few problems ensuring nutrition and basic medical care, water and sanitation, shelters and personal safety, Poland lagged far behind. Now Law and Justice have done the double, and secured a storming victory in the country’s parliamentary elections.

Jan Gross, a Polish-born US Jewish historian and sociologist, said the results were “a big disappointment to those who err on the side of tolerance in Poland“, and “risked entrenching the monolithic tendencies in Polish society, to the detriment of minorities”.