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| Europe |
| Polish Serpent Gorynych wants revenge, but heads look in different directions |
| 2023-10-24 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Stremidlovsky [REGNUM] When on October 17, the National Electoral Commission of Poland announced the results of the Sejm elections, in which the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) took the lead with 194 seats out of 460, but the following three opposition forces together received 248 mandates, plus 18 seats - “Confederation”, most commentators, as a matter of course, positioned the “troika” as a kind of single monolith. However, this idea still needs to be tested in practice. “Civic Platform”, “New Left” and “Third Way” are a political “dragon”, Serpent Gorynych with three heads, the connecting element of which is the desire to remove “Law and Justice” from power (preferably forever), and some figures of the ruling party put in jail. In Russian folk tales, the Serpent Gorynych was a fairly stable construction from the point of view of internal organization. How does this apply to the three Polish opposition forces? On Tuesday-Wednesday (October 24-25), Polish President Andrzej Duda will test the troika. He will speak in turn with representatives of the five forces that made it into the Sejm, given that PiS also has a tiny chance of enlisting the support of the 231 newly elected deputies. According to the head of the presidential chancellery , Pavel Shrot , during the consultations Duda will ask questions about party programs, primarily about security and defense issues, as well as about the vision for solving social and economic problems. Schroth noted that the president must be fully aware of the extent to which the likely ruling coalition that will be presented to him “will turn out to be internally coherent ,” because “it is obvious that he has doubts.” This made it clear that the three opposition forces have weak points that Duda, whose election as president in 2015 and 2020 was thanks to Law and Justice, could put pressure on. Some of these “pain points” have begun to be identified in the public space. The most problematic link is the left. The New Left has the fewest seats in the troika - 26 (Civic Platform - 157, Third Way - 65), but without them it is impossible to take a majority. At the same time, they insist that ideological issues, in particular, the liberalization of abortion, be spelled out in the future coalition agreement. With this point, the New Left went to the elections and won. The almost complete ban on abortion in Poland, lobbied by Law and Justice three years ago, brought down the party's ratings, which it has never been able to recover. And the massive turnout of women at the polls on October 15 led to the victory of the three opposition forces. However, liberalizing abortion is a taboo for the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), part of the Third Way. Its conservative electorate will not forgive agreement with the left on this issue. Therefore, the PSL leadership is already declaring that under no circumstances will they allow any mention of abortion to appear in the coalition agreement. This is one example of potential “blood clots” during the development of a formal agreement by the opposition “troika”. In fact there are more of them. That is why Duda agreed to talk one-on-one with representatives of the five parties in a confidential atmosphere. Firstly, this will make it possible to better sense the potential vulnerabilities of a possible coalition of opposition forces. Secondly, to create an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust between its participants, when each of them suspects the other or others that they went a little further in their communication with the president than they should have. Realizing this, the troika is trying to implement the advanced scenario. “ On Tuesday morning, opposition leaders will publish a joint statement on the formation of a new government,” the Rzeczpospolita newspaper reports. “ The purpose of this statement, according to our interlocutors from various opposition circles, is to create a new political situation even before Duda holds consultations with the leaders of all the forces whose deputies will be included in the new parliament.” In this case, the “troika” is in a hurry to sign, if not the full and final text of the coalition agreement, then at least agree on and publish its main points in order to narrow the space for maneuvers and intrigues for the president. First of all, this concerns the candidate for the post of prime minister. The Civic Platform insists that its leader, Donald Tusk, should head the government. However, Duda can play on the ambitions of the remaining members of the “troika”, for example, by entrusting the mission of forming a government to the chairman of the Polish Peasant Party, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz . The fact that the president is not going to tie his hands by the tradition of entrusting the creation of a government to a representative of the winning party or coalition, in our case the Law and Justice party, was hinted by a senior official in the presidential office, Małgorzata Paprocka . According to her, the Constitution leaves “ this issue absolutely to the discretion of the President .” So the opposition troika faces a difficult task. After all, the coordination of the position of the candidate for prime minister comes as a package with the determination of who will become deputy prime minister, occupy leading ministries, and head the Sejm and Senate of Poland. Analysts suggest that difficulties here may again arise due to the “New Left”, who are applying for posts “out of rank.” Tuesday will be the day that will show how ready the “troika” is to work harmoniously. Or it will turn out that the idea of \u200b\u200brevenge on “Law and Justice” in general and its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski in particular is insufficient for the survival of the Polish opposition Serpent Gorynych. Related: Law and Justice party: 2023-09-24 Biden's mythical elevators. Lithuania continues to dream about Ukrainian grain Law and Justice party: 2023-09-17 Poland shaken by reports that consular officials took bribes to help migrants enter Europe, US Law and Justice party: 2023-09-13 Kiev reiterates grain threat to Poland |
| Posted by:badanov |