Poland: Third sector victory in parliamentary elections

The victory, on Sunday 21st October, for Poland?s ?pro-EU? party, the Civic Platform is good news for the Polish third sector. The Civic Platform managed to oust the right-wing Law and Justice minority government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski with 41 % of the votes versus Kaczynski?s 32 %, according to Poland?s State Elections Commission. The strongest showing for any single party since the eastern European country overthrew Communism in 1989. But the victory of the Civic Platform?s Donald Tusk, Poland?s likely new Prime Minister, is of note also because of the record turn out at the polls: 52.6%, higher than any parliamentary elections since 1989.

Good news for the third sector
The new government led by the Civic Platform is not likely to continue the former government?s attempts to control foundations and it looks like it will engage non profit organizations more in the process of development and delivery of public policy programs. These outcomes should not only be the outcome of their philosophical stance, but they were also the promises that an important Civic Platform senator made in the Polish Parliament on Monday to the representatives of the nonprofit sector. Democratic ideology figures higher in the Civic Platform?s agenda than did Law & Justice?s pragmatism.

At 8pm on Sunday, the time when polling stations were to be closed, millions of Polish people switched on their TVs to see the first results of the parliamentary elections. But it was not until 22.50 that the first estimates could be made as several voting centers had run out of ballots and had to wait for the delivery of additional ones. The turnout of voters across the nation of 38 million had been much higher than expected. Many observers proclaim these are the most important elections since the collapse of communism.

This year elections campaign was mostly a fight between the two largest parties: Civic Platform and Law & Justice. Two years ago their manifesto?s had been very similar but after failing to create a coalition they first became polarized and finally became fully fledged political enemies. Civic Platform?s refusal of the conditions that Law & Justice proposed meant that they became the most destructive opposition, and by blocking most of their parliamentary decisions they eventually forced the parliament to dissolve two years before the end of the term, in September 2007.

Policy priorities
The elections were extremely important as their outcome has set the priorities of government policy for the coming years. The main priorities of the Law & Justice had been the fight against corruption, the so-called decommunisation (attempt to remove from the public sphere people who were in power during communism) and making the state and government stronger through the centralization of certain powers and the increase of control.

The Civic Platform has instead promised to focus on the future rather than the past ? despite the fact that Civic Platform members also grew out of the solidarity movement – and to strengthen democracy. They promote further decentralization and aim to decrease government control, even though there is a chance that such moves might bring even more chaos and corruption to public life.