At a few minutes after 9 p.m. Sunday night Poland’s official Election Day information blackout ended and Polish media could legally publish exit poll data without the risk of gargantuan fines of up to $300,000.
The release of information assuaged fears that the blackout would be extended after a morning scare when what looked like a makeshift bomb was placed outside a polling station Sunday morning. Had the shoebox with a ticking alarm clock and wires sticking out of it, turned out to be a real threat, the National Election Committee may well have extended voting and, by default the blackout—and we would all still be in the proverbial dark.
But as it stands, exit polls show that a statistically unimpressive 47.7 percent of Poles have cast their ballots, giving the political scene a bit of a shakeup.
One of the biggest losers in the election appears to be leftist party Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which won only 7.7 percent of the popular vote (down from over 10 percent from a few months ago). As old as Polish democracy itself, if not older, with roots in the days of Polish communism, SLD seems to have staked its survival on a bid for the young vote.
According to polls of Polish voter sentiment, young voters have a sense of disillusionment and alienation and say they lack political representation.
SLD’s strategy has for years now been to try and revitalize its ranks. To this end it has employed a youthful leader and quite a few fresh-faced up-and-comers to bolster its ranks, some of whom have shown a pretty spry sense of MTV-generation campaign-trail flair.
In this category of campaigning is Katarzyna Lenart, a 23-year-old female SLD candidate who unapologetically used her charms to woo voters in an election promo clip. The clip shows her disrobing with the film stopping a mere “Censored” text bar shy of showing her bare chest. “If you want to see more, vote for SLD,” reads text at the end of the clip.
I guess voters didn’t, figuring a facelift on the same-old wasn’t going to deliver the freshness they were clamoring for.
Which brings us to the big winner (though not in absolute terms); a brand new party called Ruch Poparcia Palikota (the Palikot Support Movement), which according to the first exit polls has become the third largest power in Parliament with 10.1 percent of the popular vote.
SLD’s loss seems to have been a gain for the completely new Palikot Movement party, which is also on the left of Poland’s political scene. The Palikot Movement is lead by Janusz Palikot, an oddball politico who thanks to his freshness and absolute irreverence for the political establishment seems to be going from strength to strength, squarely in possession of the anti-establishment vote, made up largely of disenchanted youth.
Palikot left the governing Civic Platform last year to start his own party, with many pundits crowing that he’d be relegated to an inconsequential political fringe.
Given that his party is now the third largest faction in Parliament, a lot of bargaining chips are in Palikot’s hands and doubtless all eyes will be on him to see what he does with them.
Other successful parties in the election were pro-business center-right Civic Platform, which also clinched top spot winning 39.6 percent of the vote. The conservative right-wing Law and Justice Party got 30.1 percent, while the agrarian-backed Polish Peasant’s Party won 8.2 percent.
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