This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Poland
The Law and Justice Party PiS, in power since 2015, has finally been unseated in an election with a record turnout of almost 75% of the country. Technically PiS still won the most votes and is supposed to get the first chance to make a coalition, but they just have no viable path to majority. Donald Tusk has called for President Duda to allow Civic Coalition to form their own coalition, most likely with “the centre-right Third Way on 14.4% and the leftwing Lewica on 8.6%”. It’s a bit of an odd coalition (or seems like that from a distance), and there may be a few sore points as they band together:
@Dean has a great writeup in the main thread if you’re interested in more background discussion on what specific issues might change or stay the same.
it is very likely as there is no real alternative (unless several people switch parties after being elected)
These three will try to form coalition to get majority. Negotiations will be exciting.
And there are many other more exciting flash points than standard-issue culture war. Lets see whether negotiations will eliminate dumbest ideas or whether each party will manage to introduce their preferred catastrophical ideas.
Though president can give chance to PIS to form coalition, which will fail, then sejm will nominate someone (almost definitely this mentioned three-headed coalition).
What do you think are the big policies there will have to be compromise over?
I think it would be easier to list on what they are clearly unified. I actually would need to look at their positions, especially for Lewica I have not bothered with looking their program after finding some no-go stuff for me (as expected).
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