The Polish parliamentary election in 2023

I hardly can believe this has all happened.

The campaign by the end of September was drab and lacklustre. PiS was bound to win, yet not to reap the majority of seats in the lower house. Five parties or less were about to cross the score threshold, with Trzecia Droga being the most likely to drop off.

On 1 October hundreds of thousands (or over a million) people marched through the streets of Warsaw, rallying to show a middle finger to the ruling party. From that day the campaign grew apace. Petrol stations were running out of underpriced fuel suddenly became a symbol of how PiS wanted to buy off voters. I presume the march and the fuel crisis have taken a bit off wind of the ruling party’s sails. In polls PiS scored some 5 percentage points more than Koalicja Obywatelska being the main grouping in the opposition.

The only country-wide debate in this campaign was hosted by the government-controlled propagandist television. Both the current prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and opposition’s leader Donald Tusk did not fare well during the squabble, but the ultimate winner of the debate turned out to be Szymon Hołownia, a co-leader Trzecia Droga. With his superb performance he at least secured a score well in excess of 8% (being a parliament entry threshold for coalitions).

The days in the run-up to the election were quite eventful. All in all we observed a scaremongering campaign of two main parties trying to defame one another, rather than present their agenda for the coming years.

The last polls before the election-time silence indicated PiS would win the vote, however even with Konfederosja they would not secure majority in the lower house of the parliament.

A few weeks ago I planned to vote somewhere in provincial Poland. Having read of voting tourism being a form of gambling, I ditched the idea and eventually cast my ballot in the local polling station.

In the afternoon, an X (formerly Twitter) screening mode went on. Leaking exit polls results indicated PiS was to win the election, some 4 – 5 percentage points ahead of KO. The proportion remained unchanged until polling stations were being closed (or queues outside them cut off).

Waiting for the story to unfold. Due to record-high turnout of 72.9% the actual results might deviate from the exit polls, but the winner and the runner-up are unlikely to swap their position. The major question mark is the score of Konfederosja, in the exit poll at mere 6.2%, well below forecasts. My calculations shows even if the right-wing wackos drop off, PiS will still be some 20 seats short of majority.

I would not rule out an early election in a few months…