Poland: is the ruling party trembling?

After the crushing victory of the Law and Justice party in the previous presidential and parliamentary races, the first elections after three years were interpreted as a test of the real support for the ruling party and a forecast for the next ballots. The results of this test were quite confusing.

Published On: December 9th, 2018
Poland: is the ruling party trembling?_62ccb38ce3ff3.jpeg
Poland: is the ruling party trembling?_62ccb38ce3ff3.jpeg

Poland: is the ruling party trembling?

After the crushing victory of the Law and Justice party in the previous presidential and parliamentary races, the first elections after three years were interpreted as a test of the real support for the ruling party and a forecast for the next ballots. The results of this test were quite confusing.

The local elections held in Poland few weeks ago were the beginning of a long electoral marathon. Next year there will be ballots for two parliaments – European (in May) and national (sometime in Autumn) – and in 2020 we will be electing our president for the next five years.

After the results of the local elections were known, both the ruling party and the opposition declared themselves as winners. And both were at least partially right to do so.

Cities for the opposition

The opposition, represented either by the members of Civic Coalition (the main opposition party in this race) or by non-partisan or left-wing candidates, won presidential seats in almost all of the cities with population of at least 100,000 people.

On the other hand, the ruling party gathered strong support in many of the local boards (voivodeships, powiats and gminas).<