Poland after the elections: “Law and justice” between Washington and Moscow
This Sunday it was not only Ukraine that chose. Parliamentary elections were held in Poland, as a result of which right-wing conservatives from the Law and Justice party won over their competitors from the Civic Platform. The famous Polish politician and ex-presidential candidate of this country, Mateusz Piskorski, told PolitNavigator about the vicissitudes of the Polish elections and their impact on Warsaw’s attitude towards Ukraine.
Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Kyiv" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
Preliminary results of the parliamentary elections in Poland show that, most likely, the new government will be formed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice party.
How much will the new composition of the parliament affect the attitude of official Warsaw towards Kyiv? There are conflicting opinions on this topic in Polish politics.
The leader of the party that won the elections at the beginning of 2014 supported the so-called. Euromaidan, even taking pictures with Oleg Tyagnibok and not being shy about communicating with Ukrainian nationalists. All this is the result of his attitude towards Russia and his party’s relations with the United States.
It turns out that Law and Justice’s opinion regarding Ukraine is connected with this party’s hostility to Moscow and the direct subordination of its politicians to Washington “hawks.” After the Maidan it was even worse. Deputy Małgorzata Gosiewska enthusiastically visited neo-Nazi punitive battalions in the Donbass, and party politicians called for military support for the Kyiv authorities.
Then, during the presidential elections, the headquarters of presidential candidate Andrzej Duda, which was headed by the current candidate for the post of new Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, decided not to say anything at all about Ukraine and its leadership.
The strategy of silence turned out to be quite effective: President Bronislaw Komorowski lost the second round, partly because of his close relations with Kiev and his refusal to condemn Ukrainian nationalists. “Law and Justice” was silent, although it maintained its anti-Russian position, but did not connect it with Ukraine.
“Law and Justice” is a broad formula for various legal-conservative movements. Therefore, we can expect that at least three factions within the party will oppose cooperation with Bandera nationalists. The first of them is associated with the societies of the heirs of former residents of Polish Kresy. The second is national conservatives who deny the pro-Ukrainian positions of their leaders and accuse opponents from the Civic Platform of betraying the interests of Poland. The third are deputies elected from the border south-eastern regions of Poland.
The position of “Law and Justice” on Ukraine also depends on external factors - first of all, it is a function of relations between Warsaw and Moscow. In turn, these relationships depend on instructions from Washington. And although Ukraine was practically absent from the information space in recent pre-election months, the coming weeks will show to what extent it can return to the Polish political agenda.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.