Need To Know: The 2019 Polish Parliamentary Elections

What was the Result? 

The right-wing populist Law and Justice Party (PiS), under Jarosław Kaczyński, greatly increased its share of the popular vote by almost eight percentage points, winning 45 per cent of votes cast. This is according to a preliminary count of 82.79 per cent of the votes cast, which was made this morning. The result was achieved on the largest electoral turnout – 61.6% – since the fall of communism in 1989.

If the estimate is correct, it looks likely to provide Kaczyński’s party with an absolute majority in Poland’s lower house, the Sejm, with a likely total of 239 of the total 460 seats available going to the PiS. This places them in a very strong position to pursue their legislative agenda.

The chief opposition, the centre-right Civic Coalition (PO),  which governed the country between 2007-2015, received further setbacks. Its share of the vote has been further reduced from 31.7 per cent and its share of the seats will drop to somewhere around the 130 mark.

The Left, a coalition of several Polish left wing parties, gained significantly from the election, with 12 per cent of the vote, a result which looks as if it will translate into around forty seats. This marks the return of Polish left wing parties to the Sejm after they failed to reach the 5% exclusion threshold at the last election in 2015.

 What were the key issues at the election?

The PiS pointed to the success of their economic programme, including generous welfare schemes such as the 500 Plus child benefit package offering 500 złoty (equivalent to £103) each month for every child born after the family’s first born. They argue that they have succeeded in redistributing wealth which the country has acquired since its entry into the EU in 2004.

Opposition party Civic Platform argued that the PiS’s economic management was unsustainable. Critics levelled allegations of corruption, and claimed that PiS has used the power of government to undermine the rule of law. Civic Platform objected to the PiS’s passing of laws in 2016 and 2017 which enabled the PiS to replace the Supreme Court Justices and the executives of the state television and radio broadcasters with their own appointments. They also attempted to appeal to more liberal sentiments on immigration.

When it came to the PiS’s socially conservative measures, including the restriction of laws guaranteeing the right to abortion and the implementation of “LGBT-free zones” by local councils, it was the parties of the Left coalition that voiced harshest criticism. Robert Biedroń, the gay leader of the coalition’s centre-left Spring party, has managed to successfully position himself as the voice of socially liberal Poland, winning a healthy chunk of the vote.

Did the election expose deep divides amongst younger voters?

 Yes. The results suggest a fissure among younger voters. Men lean to the right and women to the left. Whereas right-wing parties are overwhelmingly popular among a majority of male voters under the age of thirty, the Left are most popular among women of the same age, especially those in urban Warsaw. Where the former often believe that “LGBT ideology” is undermining the tradition of the Christian family, the latter are more likely to favour liberal policies on issues such as LGBT rights, abortion and equal pay.

 Will these policies continue? 

The party declared in the election that it intends to continue its overhaul of the judicial system as a part of wider plans for legal reform and for the further regulation of the press and the legal profession.

Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of European Reform, believes that there will not be another confrontation between the Polish government and the EU before the Presidential elections, due to be held in the Spring of 2020, as the party seeks to court more moderate voters.

One thing is certain: for the next five years, at least, the political landscape of Poland will be firmly controlled by PiS.