Poles vote for Poland

polish posterLargely unnoticed on this side of the world, Poles spent the weekend electing a new government. The results, while not yet final, suggest that there is at least one European nation still possessed of a national identity its citizens believe worthy of defending. In the Britain’s Telegraph, former UK ambassador to Warsaw, Charles Crawford reports:

The official results are not yet out. But it is clear that Poland’s 2015 Parliamentary elections have given the Law and Justice party led by Jarosław Kaczynski a thumping victory, with up to 40 per cent of the vote. Depending on the final numbers and how many smaller parties squeeze over the 5 per cent threshold into parliament, Law and Justice could have an absolute majority in the Sejm, the first time any party has achieved that since communism ended 25 years ago.

The party’s view of the world:

Law and Justice are usually denounced as nutty Catholic reactionary right-wingers by the chattering classes within Poland and around Europe. In fact they are a sui generis movement of truculent, carefully Eurosceptic étatist-patriots. They urge a “strong Poland”, by which they mainly mean robust and sternly honest state institutions, and a square deal for state employees and pensioners.

Latterly Law and Justice have made a successful effort to broaden their appeal towards small businesses and younger voters. But they are instinctively suspicious of big business and banks, and loath to do anything radical to reform state processes or advance privatisation/deregulation. They are comfortable playing to conservative Catholic instincts of older Polish voters, but they see the Catholic Church as a patriotic force: they are not religious zealots….

… In foreign policy terms Law and Justice will be to the fore in pressing that Europe and the West stand firm against Russian neo-imperialism in Ukraine and Syria (more NATO, please), while cautious in what that means in practice. Do not expect Poland to rush to embrace Muslim refuges and “migrants” from the Middle East: as far as Warsaw is concerned, Poland, for grim historical reasons has to over-insure in maintaining its national identity, and in any case Poland has taken in plenty of Ukrainians and Chechens escaping the former Soviet space.

 Crawford’s analysis can be read in full via the link below.

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