But foreign policy isn’t at the top of minds of most voters. Still, after months of fractious debates over the Greek bailout and refugee crisis, and with Britain’s in-out referendum on EU membership looming next year, Poland’s new direction is not a great sign for the European project.
Advertisement
It also won 61 out of 100 seats in the upper house, the Senate, which has the power to amend or reject proposed laws.
Law and Justice, a nationalist party, exploited this weak point and won on a platform promising lower income tax, cash allowances for poor families with children, rejecting adoption of the Euro as the nation’s currency and a hefty promise of 1.2 million new jobs.
Former Prime Minister Donald Tusk – who tellingly now presides over the European Council – and his Civic Platform tried hard to shed 20th-century fears of Germany, viewing it not as an enemy but as the best partner to have to achieve its goals.
A Polish rightist party that stirred controversy with xenophobic remarks about Muslims and Jews by a few of its representatives won the parliamentary election in Poland. However, it is, in rhetorical terms at least, a broadly anti-federalist (verging on Eurosceptic) grouping committed to opposing further European integration and defending Polish sovereignty.
Poland’s worldwide reputation also flourished. Ten-years-ago it was believed that Law and Justice voters were elderly people who didn’t have a university education and were from rural areas.
There will even be question marks about who will be in the PM position a year from now – PiS’ controversial leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski or Beata Szydlo who is likely to be appointed now. Ties between the two countries became deeply strained and many Poles learned the lesson that taking a combative attitude today to Germany, a model democracy that helped bring Poland into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the European Union, is counter-productive.
More broadly, Law and Justice has sought to contrast what it claims is its accurate diagnosis of Russian motives with the Civic Platform-led government’s earlier conciliatory approach towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, which events in Ukraine have shown to be naïve and short-sighted. Born in Oswiecim, the town where the Nazis ran the notorious Auschwitz extermination camp during their World War II occupation of Poland, she wants to improve Poland’s future, rather than rake over historic wounds.
Poland has continued to grow through the global financial crisis but, in general, workers can earn more in neighboring Germany than they can at home.
Advertisement
It was not immediately clear whether the result, which will be made final on Tuesday, would allow the Law and Justice party – led by Jarosław Kaczyński, the twin brother of Poland’s late president Lech – to rule alone. He could work with the Visegrad group of former communist countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary – as well as Romania and Bulgaria to block European Union plans for mandatory quotas for refugees. “Now we’re seeing a change – the Law and Justice Party had significant support from younger people with a good level of education”.
