Focus on Poland today, where legislative elections took place on Sunday October 15. The Polish journalist, correspondent for the daily “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Piotr Moszynski is the guest of José-Manuel Lamarque.
European microphone looks at the recent legislative elections on October 15 in Poland. Decryption with the Polish journalist, correspondent for the daily “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Piotr Moszynski.
franceinfo: Concerning these last elections, what was very important was the participation rate, especially among young people and women?
Piotr Moszynski: Absolutely, because these two electorates were quite silent during the previous elections. We knew that the party in power, the PIS, Law and Justice, played all the time practically against these two electorates, favoring the older electorate, the interests of retirees and also a lot of social issues in the politics of Law and Justice. .
So today, with this result, it is the end of eight years of government of the PIS, the populist party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, since the results show that the civic coalition of Donald Tusk, ex-president of the European Council, the party The Third Way and the Left won the elections.
Today, the President of the Republic, Andrzej Duda, close to the PIS, a populist nationalist party, what about the future government? Will Andrzej Duda hand over the government to winner or keep a government of Law and Justice?
The situation from the president’s point of view is quite complicated, to the extent that if we look at the classification by party that comes out of the polls, it is Law and Justice which is in the lead. We are not talking about coalitions, we are talking about parties. So what is in mind is Law and Justice. Therefore, according to the Constitution, the president has every right to entrust the formation of the government to the leader of the party which wins the elections in this classification by party.
So, we do not take into account Donald Tusk’s civic coalition, The Third Way, i.e. the Christian Democrats and the left, they would win 249 seats, while the Law and Justice party and its potential ally, the extreme right, known as the Confederation, would obtain 211 seats?
That’s it, that’s exactly it. Now, obviously, we cannot blame President Duda if he concedes, according to the Constitution, that he turns to his original party, Law and Justice, to entrust the formation of the government to that party.
But would that be an untenable situation?
Absolutely. As the minority government would fall immediately and would not have Parliament’s vote of confidence, obviously, it would be untenable, unfeasible. But perhaps, in fact, Andrzej Duda would like to make a political gesture towards his original camp.
But how long will this situation last?
It is possible that the president will show a little more realism, he will contact the coalition parties ready to take power. So, he will perhaps turn to them, but it is not certain to the extent that Law and Justice, which knows that it lost the elections, also knows that it needs a lot of time to hide certain things, destroy documents that would be compromising for him, once the new coalition comes to power in a stable manner.
Let’s look at the calendar again. When do you see the formation of a government in Warsaw then?
At the earliest, in a few weeks, at the latest mid-January. It depends on the procedures initiated by the President of the Republic, who has in hand practically all the assets and all the instruments. Above all, to act, either to delay the creation of the current opposition government, or to accelerate this process. Everyone hopes that he will simply behave like a man and recognize the reality before his eyes. But nothing is certain.