Posted October 27, 2015
Trilarion: snip ... the official leader of PiS, Beata Szydło, is not identical with the mastermind behind it, Jarosław Kaczyński, and you think that his is easy enough for the voter to look through, ...
Is law and justice in Poland the end of liberal attitudes? Will Poland follow the way of Hungary? Will division of powers be ended, media be suppressed? ... Will Polands economy grow at minor expenses here and there?
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More serious answer now Trilarion. :) Is law and justice in Poland the end of liberal attitudes? Will Poland follow the way of Hungary? Will division of powers be ended, media be suppressed? ... Will Polands economy grow at minor expenses here and there?
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First, as usual nice to see your good humored curiosity about serious stuff. Always good to understand and know your neighbors right?
I won't speculate a lot on future, just want to comment what I left quoted from the bottom. I already mentioned little will change, PiS is rather a conservative party, and economically I expect very little will actually change other than posturing. As for deeper political changes, as mentioned they don't have enough power for constitutional changes and rearranging power, despite also holding the presidency.
The end of liberal attitudes now... well I expect conservative attitudes will be empowered, but the country was already divided in those regards - mainly a generational thing I think, because consider '89 was less than 30 years ago so another 30 years will make a huge difference. Anyway obviously some rather extremist voices will feel encouraged, but the majority of PiS voters are just traditional catholics of some sort - so abortion and homosexuality will be the hot button topics.
As to the Hungarian path, that requires expanding on. In some ways the Hungarian nationalist path will be pursued, and the fact that former PO PM Tusk is in the EU leadership is going to facilitate anti-EU rhetoric to no end, as well some distancing from German positions is likely to continue. Notice I said continue, because despite the PO having had a conciliatory and friendly approach to Polish-German relations they were always the minority in that regard. Distrust of Germany runs very deep in Poland, despite the economic affluence having camouflaged that.
So in those aspects you could say PiS will follow Orban, but really it isn't following, it's convergence and Orban deserves zero credit for it. Anti-EU, anti immigration, nationalist voices are everywhere in Europe and gaining strength, from France to Finland and the UK to Greece. As for the Hungarian positions of friendliness to Russia, which might have been far from your mind, if anything PiS will consciously distance themselves from Orban in those regards.
Finally... Kaczynski. Well, I am curious about foreign press treatment because calling him a mastermind and implying the polish population has been fooled somehow or is blinded is... odd certainly, and bordering on misrepresentation. The kind of elitism that only helps reinforce the populist streak of PiS voter appeal. Now I don't like the guy, but he's at least as much a clown as a mastermind. A kind of true believer of sorts which therefore is more analogous to Lenin than to Stalin - and this is a point that I'd make forcefully to actual Poles so they keep a close eye on whoever is coming behind Kaczynski, because there the real danger lies.
I'll leave it there but happy to talk more if you want further elaboration.