Polish General Election 2023/10/15

[villan95]

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

24 minutes ago, villan95 said:

 

 

Means nothing (so far!) Mostly rural places counted and PiS are down in line with all 3 exit polls. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[villan95]

54 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Means nothing (so far!) Mostly rural places counted and PiS are down in line with all 3 exit polls. 

Yeah was just the latest update I'd seen. PiS vote share usually drops the more that's counted?

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, villan95 said:

Yeah was just the latest update I'd seen. PiS vote share usually drops the more that's counted?

Yeah because smaller distracts are counted first and they vote more for PiS

[StefanAVFC]

At the rate they’re dropping they’ll even underperform the exit poll 

[sidcow]

4 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

3rd exit poll (the late poll) also suggests majority for the opposition. That’s 3 now. 

Assume the incumbent will start talking about election fraud and declare the result null and void shortly? 

Edited October 16, 2023 by sidcow

[StefanAVFC]

11 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Assume the incumbent will start talking about election fraud and declare the result null and void shortly? 

They facilitated free, but not fair elections. Any cheating would be on their side as they controlled the electoral commission entirely.

But the shenanigans will be when the President (PiS friendly) will ask the current PM to form a government, which will fail, but will delay the new government getting in for at least 4 weeks.

[StefanAVFC]

PiS already below 37% and still rapidly falling.

[Clarry]

19 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Sorry there will be spam:

Red = KO

Blue = PiS

Proper east v west split here

Warsaw's state is firmly blue due to outside of Warsaw

Most of the old German areas, SIlesia, Pomerania etc.

[Clarry]

20 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Get the public broadcaster to be a normal public broadcaster again, and not a 24/7 North Korea-esque propaganda network and re-reform the courts to unlock EU funds again. Oh and undo the ridiculous damage they did to women's rights.

Whenever I visit Warsaw and take my niece to one of her evening dance classes there is always someone with a loud speaker playing a recorded protest outside TVP headquarters. Even my  niece saw TVP news as a joke 2 years ago when she was 14.

[bobzy]

What does all of this mean for your shit road @StefanAVFC?

[StefanAVFC]

 

[StefanAVFC]

Slightly scary article here:

Quote

Three Roadblocks  for a Peaceful Transfer of Power

In short, it is impossible to predict how PiS and Andrzej Duda will behave in the instance of the opposition’s victory. The plausible scenarios range from the president matter-of-factly offering Donald Tusk the mandate to form the new government to a predetermined resistance. Poland’s Western European and American partners and the international legal community should hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Legally, three main steps in the transition of power can go seriously wrong. The first one lies in the Supreme Court, which is tasked with declaring the validity of the election. As of now, the majority of judges in the Court have been appointed by the so-called “National Council of Judiciary,” unconstitutionally captured by PiS in 2018. To make things worse, as part of its legislative sweep, PiS assigned the competence of declaring the validity of the elections to the new Extraordinary Review and Public Affairs Chamber, fully controlled by the PiS-appointed judges.

This chamber has already demonstrated its political subservience by dismissing the concerns over the 2020 presidential election won by Mr. Duda. At the time, the gist of PiS’s manipulation was their decision to push through the election amidst the COVID pandemic despite clear provisions of Article 228 Section 7 of the Polish constitution that requires rescheduling of a national election during natural disasters and other emergencies. If three years ago, the unconstitutionally staffed chamber allowed PiS to ignore the above-mentioned constitutional norms, it raises questions as to whether this body can show more independence this time around. Especially given that the jobs of the very judges illegally appointed to the chamber may be at stake should the opposition take power.

The Role of the President

The second danger rests in the process of appointing the prime minister, outlined in Articles 154 and 155 of the Constitution. This process is divided into three stages. In the first, President Duda can nominate whomever he chooses as prime minister and, on the new premier’s motion, the entirety of the new cabinet. Duda will likely select a candidate proposed by PiS. A convenient justification may be that, although PiS may fall well short of the majority in Sejm, it may be the largest single caucus, given that the democratic opposition is running in three separate blocks.

The new cabinet must swiftly seek a vote of confidence in the Sejm. But importantly, it remains fully in power until the president appoints the next prime minister and the cabinet. This is crucial given the untested second stage of the constitutional process of government formation, which has never been used since the basic law came into force in 1997. Article 154 Section 3 of the Constitution states that if the cabinet appointed by the president in the first stage fails to secure the vote of confidence within 14 days, the Sejm itself “chooses” (or, in another translation, “elects”) the prime minister and the cabinet.

And here comes the critical twist: the chosen cabinet does not automatically take over from the cabinet appointed by the president in the first stage. The Constitution, instead, states that “the President of the Republic shall appoint the Council of Ministers so chosen and accept the oaths of office of its members.”

An Authoritarian Déjà Vu

For any observer of the Polish democratic collapse over the last eight years, this constitutional reference to a ministerial duty of the Polish head of state to formally appoint high officials chosen by Sejm should immediately ring an alarm bell. For it is precisely President Duda’s refusal to carry out an analogous duty that started Poland’s constitutional crisis. It was in the fall of 2015 when Duda declined to take oaths from three justices of the Constitutional Tribunal duly elected by Sejm. Duda has also repeatedly insisted on his prerogative not to appoint judges elected by the National Council of Judiciary, both before and after its illegal takeover in 2018.

It is therefore possible that the president may ignore his clear constitutional duty to appoint Donald Tusk as prime minister, even if the latter receives majority support in Sejm. Duda can instead try to force a move to the third stage of the constitutional process, in which he again has the right to pick the prime minister and the cabinet. If he, for instance, reappoints his allies from the first stage, that cabinet will likely fail to secure Sejm’s vote of confidence. However, in that case, Duda can claim that Article 155 Section 2 of the Constitution requires him to dissolve the parliament and call for a new election. In the meantime, his handpicked cabinet would remain in power. The mere repeat of Duda’s unconstitutional behavior from 2015 may give PiS a redo of the national election in early spring of 2024 while keeping the full power of the government.

The Election’s Aftermath – Verfassungsblog