LAW AND JUSTICE USE ELECTORAL "SWEET SPOT" TO WIN POLAND'S ELECTION - ALSO BREAKTHROUGH BY HARDER RIGHT

Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński

Following Poland's general election held on Sunday (13th October), it seems that voters are not yet ready to abandon the populist right-wing Law and Justice Party for Left-wing or Centrist parties. 

In the election to decide all the seats in the 460-member Sejm (parliament) and the 100-member Senate, the socially conservative party boosted its share of the vote from 37% last time to 44% this time.

However, due to Poland's complex voting system and more parties effectively contesting the election, the party actually lost a few seats!

Going into Sunday's vote the situation was as follows (Sejm + Senate):

LAW AND JUSTICE  240 seats + 61 seats

CIVIC COALITION (Lib Dems)  155 seats + 26 seats
POLISH COALITION (Christian Dems)  38 seats + 1 seat

The new Sejm and Senate now look like this:

LAW AND JUSTICE  235 seats + 48 seats

CIVIC COALITION (Lib Dems)  134 seats + 43 seats
POLISH COALITION (Christian Dems)  30 seats + 3 seat

THE LEFT (Centre Left) 49 seats + 2 seats

KONFEDERATION (Nationalist) 11 seats + 0 seats 

The reason why the Law and Justice Party strengthened its grip on power is because they hit the economically-left-socially-right electoral sweet spot.

In economic terms they rejected austerity and neoliberalism with a range of popular policies, including an almost 100 percent rise in the minimum wage, increased retirement benefits, and Western-level subsidies for Poland’s farmers. 

Meanwhile they have continued to resist gay supremacists and abortion advocates who have been attacking Poland's traditional Catholic society. 

Also noted is the rise of "Konfederation," a coalition of harder right-wing and nationalist parties, which scored 6.8% of the vote and will break into the Sejm for the first time. It  includes monarachist, libertarian, anti-immigrant, and nationalist strands. Now, how cool is that?

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