The Duran Podcast - Poland Law and Justice election self-defeat, ultimate Zelensky curse

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Poland Law and Justice election self-defeat, ultimate Zelensky curse

All right, Alexander, we had elections in Poland the other day, and the party that came in second place is going to be the party that's going to form a government. The Law and Justice Party, which was the ruling party, they ended up with like 36, 37 percent of the votes for the parliamentary elections, but it's impossible for them to form a coalition. The numbers, the seats don't add up. So it's, uh, it goes to, Donald Tusk and his party, they do have the partners and the seats to form a coalition. It's going to be a pro-EU, neoliberal, globalist. If you want to call it left, I just don't understand what left is anymore, to be quite honest.

But, you know, the mainstream media calls it left. I don't think it's left. But, you know, Donald Tusk, I have very bad memories of Donald Tusk. as someone that lived in Greece and Cyprus. He is not my favorite person in the world. Far from it. Yeah, far from it. So I'm, you know, maybe I'm going to be a little biased here,

but I think he's going to be a complete disaster for Poland. Not that law and justice was any better, but Donald Tusk is definitely not an improvement. In my opinion, anyway, your thoughts on the... Well, I think that's absolutely right. And by the way, note that, you know, whatever, whatever you want, to analyse these elections. The one thing that's absolutely clear,

and that there is no huge enthusiasm in Poland for Donald Tusk. I mean, he's partly got just under 30% of the vote. So he's going to become prime minister, but as you rightly say, his party came second and second by a significant distance. So there isn't vast amount of enthusiasm for, him. And supposedly he's a leader of the centre right, Christian Democrat right, I don't get that very seriously. He's going to rely himself to form this coalition with two coalition

partners. This is the story, the work that's going on. One is another centre right party, which apparently is not the same as Donald Tusk's party. I don't really see what the difference between these two parties is. But anyway, that's, the point is, I suppose, that it's not led by Donald Tusk. The third is the left party, which is basically a combination of various parties, one of which is what's left of Poland's Communist Party. The party that used to rule Poland during the time when Poland was allied with the Soviet Union, was a Soviet-sat, Soviet-Sat, Adelaide and was in the Warsaw Pact and the Comic-Con and all of that. So it's going to look at very, very strange coalition at some levels. But the point is that they're all in agreement about one thing,

well, they're in agreement about two things. One, they all support the EU, fervid supporters of the EU. Secondly, they are also, to varying degrees, apparently, and the left party, especially so, united on these various identity issues, which are controversial in Poland, to put it mildly. Now, I know that this is a great victory for Donald Tusk. It doesn't seem to me that his policies are enormously popular.

I'm going to give my own explanation as to why, despite coming out as the biggest party, law and justice, is not going to be able to form a government and must be treated as having lost the election. And that is, I think, that it lost the election rather than Donald Tusk winning it. I think that over the last year, two years, it has alienated a significant part of its political base. I think that it became wildly over-committed

to the Ukraine project. as I think they finally understood far too late in the day about two months before the election happened. I think a lot of people in Poland were not at all happy about these proposals that were coming out of some people in law and justice about marching the Polish army into Western Ukraine and getting involved with the Russians. I think Polish farmers were furious over the mass of Ukrainian grain.

that was coming into Poland, and that also turned many of them against law and justice. And I think last but not least, I think that, you know, this vast flood of Ukrainian refugees in Poland also began to disenchant a lot of Poles, especially those Poles who formed part of law and justice's electoral base. So I think that support for law and justice fell and got dispersed amongst various other parties. And that opened the way for Donald Tusk to come back. Yeah. So what are you expecting from Tusk? Well, he's going to try to reverse all the legal changes and reforms that we have seen law and justice do.

he is going to renew Poland's support for Ukraine. About that, there is absolutely no doubt. So we could probably start to see some of the tension taken out of the relationship with Ukraine. But I don't think that he will renew support for Ukraine and bring it back to that same level of ardor and passion that law and justice brought to it. at the original time of the great romance between Poland and Ukraine that we saw right through last year, and through the first part of this year, I think Tusk will want to keep a bigger distance from Zelensky and from Ukraine than law and justice did. So I think that will happen.

But I think the main priority will be to deepen and strengthen the EU. Poland, I should add, is going through economic problems. The growth rate has fallen very significantly. Donald Tusk will want to restart economic growth. He'll probably want to cut down on military spending, which is getting out of control. But his way, his route towards restarting economic growth is to take Poland deeper into Europe.

And I personally believe sooner or later he will want to take Poland into the euro. That's what I think he's going to do. Good night, Poland, if that happened. I was just going to ask you, what you said take him deeper into Europe? Europe is, there is no depth anymore in Europe. I mean, Germany's shattered. France is a complete mess. where is it going to take Poland into?

I mean, it's like you're taking Poland into the abyss by going further, by digging deeper into Europe. Into the milestone, the milestone being that great whirlpool that ships plunged into him whenever seen all again. Well, I think that's exactly what he's going to do because, of course, he doesn't see it in those terms. He sees Europe as, you know, this great sunlit upland, which everybody ought to be a part of.

of and Poland certainly must be. And of course he's got all of the proof of what a tremendous sunlit upland. It is that proof, being that he was for many years, president of the European Council and is a person looked up to and held in vast esteem in Brussels. For people like Tusk, and I really want to say this again, is more important for him what people think about him in Brussels and Berlin than what they think about him in Krakke. of Warsaw and Cherchin and those sort of places. I think that's a thing that what always needs to understand about people like him.

Yeah. Yeah, he was, uh, he was what Charles Michelle is today. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He was an Ursula's position. He was Charles Michelle is today. Yeah.

And that was, yeah, that was during, during a very tough time for, uh, for the, uh, the south of, of, of Europe. He was instrumental in all the austerity and IMF and all of that stuff. The final question is, is the relationship with Hungary, I think, is also now broken. Oh, absolutely. That alliance that was there. There was a kind of that teamwork that was there between, say, Hungary and Poland. Maybe it lessened as the conflict in Ukraine went along because, because, Poland had one position, Hungary had another, and Poland really dug deep into their support with, they really went deep into their support with Ukraine. But, you know, there was

this alliance, this front that was created between Hungary and Poland, especially with regards to EU funds and stuff like that. That's also over and done with, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, I should say, in my opinion, was largely broken last year over the Ukraine thing. I mean, looking back, And I think this is a point we should make. And we've talked many times about the Olensky curse. Law and justice is perhaps in some ways the most spectacular single example of the Elensky curse.

I mean, looking back, if you reel back in time to 2021, say, they were in a very strong position. Poland's economy was doing well. They were popular with many, many people in Poland, not just people as is always made, you know, misrepresented people on the right and all that kind of thing, but people who liked law injustices family-oriented socially conservative policies, which in a Catholic country like Poland inevitably was going to make, going to make them popular, both with religious people, but also with families, you know, because they were doing lots of things to support families.

And of course they had this strong relationship with Hungary and each country Poland and Hungary was therefore able to look after the other to watch the others back. And they threw it all away. They threw it all away on this astonishing thing last year. Commitment, open-ended commitment to Ukraine, sending soldiers to Ukraine, sending the most part of the Polish army's military equipment to Ukraine, pumping up military spending to impossibly high levels, allowing grain to pour in to Poland,

calling for endless sanctions against Russia, which of course has impacted also on Poland. Let's never forget that. And of course, all of that has, I mean, they've broken their entire problem. their entire position on the basis of it. The economy has weakened significantly.

People are unhappy because of all the Ukrainian migrants who now in Poland. The grain business, as I said, turned farmers against them. And of course, a lot of people got rattled because of the talk about interventions, military interventions in Western Ukraine. So it all came together

and that's why they lost. I mean, they lost for that reason. And the friendship between Poland and Hungary, which was working to the interests, both of the Polish government, the PIS government, and, you know, Orban in Hungary. Well, they threw that all the way. Orban now has a new ally,

which is of course Fidso in Slovakia. So he's probably all right. But law and justice is now out of power. And I suspect that what we're going to start to see over the next few months is that everything that they put in place is going to be systematically dismantled. Because people who think that, you know, they've nailed it all down, I think that they will find that that's not how it works at all when you're in the European Union. Donald Tusk can do all kinds of things.

He can bend the Constitution in all kinds of ways, which, of course, he can do because this time, if he does that, the EU will be behind him. Donald Tusk is as insider as you get when it comes to the European Union. They might as well, Poland might as well have elected Ursula. There's no difference. Absolutely. And he's going to take, as a Poland,

in. And as I said, eventually, and I do believe this, the ultimate agenda is to bring Poland into the Eurozone. It's the ultimate end of Poland then, if they go into the Eurozone. Yeah. Okay. I agree with you. Olensky curse. Alensky curse in a big, big way, took down law and justice. You know, they bet it all on Alenski. And the biggest slap in the face for law and justice is going to come when the Olensky government and Ukraine collapses or loses his conflict, which is now, you know, it's coming. They bet it all on the loser side as well, which was just foolish. Yes, yes.

Well, you know, people always, I mean, I don't actually personally like this type of, you know, stereotypical characterisation, but always people say that Poland the tendency the polls have is to throw it all away on romantic fantasies. And I think in law and justice's case

there was an element of that. And I have to say this, you know, that they got mesmerised by the return to L'volve and all of that and, you know, the long crusade against the Russians. And they lost focus. They lost that hard-headed, practical, realistic approach to Poland's interests that ultimately a political leader needs.

I agree with you. All right. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, odyssey, bitch shoot, telegram, rock finn, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop. 20% off. Use the code the Duran 20. Take care.