Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party gains majority

EUR-PLN spiked sharply over the past couple of days, surpassing 4.29 at one point during trading yesterday, after election results showed that right-wing Law & Justice (PiS) won a stronger-than-expected majority in both houses of parliament. It is projected to be able to form a government alone, the first time a single group has done so since democracy was restored in Poland in 1989.

PiS secured 37.6 percent of the vote, the country’s election body said, with the ruling Civic Platform (PO) coming in second at 24.1 percent.

For Law and Justice, which also has the backing of President Andrzej Duda, that means advocating a combination of Catholic conservative moral policies and planning more state intervention in the economy to help families and the poor.

It won’t be led by the combative Kaczynski, however by Beata Szydlo, his party loyalist with no overseas coverage credentials.

Members of the European Union (EU) have expressed concern that Poland will be less willing to negotiate and comply with its agendas, especially concerning Law and Justice’s firm refusal to welcome Syrian immigrants, an outright rejection of the EU’s policy.

One of the key issues at stake is Europe’s refugee crisis.

Poland has seen its economy, the largest in ex-communist central Europe, expand by almost 50 percent in the last decade, with the pro-market Civic Platform focusing on trying to make the most of European Union aid and combining green field investment with fiscal prudence.

“Beata Szydlo is the candidate to become prime minister”, the PAP press agency reported PiS spokeswoman Elzbieta Wilk as saying, adding that she was making the declaration to “cut short” speculation about the party’s choice for the role.

It also wants to enshrine more Roman Catholic values in law, reflecting the party’s deeply socially conservative stance.

A few party members indicate that the new government could be in place by mid-November.

However, Law and Justice claims that the Civic Platform-led government was, notwithstanding occasional flushes of anti-Moscow rhetoric, constrained by its unwillingness to move too far beyond the EU consensus and act as a counter-balance to the major European powers which, it argues, are over-conciliatory towards Moscow.

“Many party leaders have talked of wanting deeper change in Poland so, if we need to ship that, modifications to the structure are very important”, the party’s spokesman on financial affairs, Zbigniew Kuzmiuk, stated on Monday.

The snag is that she is not her own master, for the PiS is actually run by Mr Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a former prime minister whose twin brother, Polish president Lech Kaczynski, perished in a 2010 plane crash over the skies of Russian Federation, which also killed many other Polish top officials.

But he highlighted two areas where a new Polish government might be at odds with the EU. “Now we’re seeing a change – the Law and Justice Party had significant support from younger people with a good level of education”.