PO ascendent in local elections; Catholic Church exploits the Internet

In the November local elections in Poland, the rank order of results predicted in the run up to the elections by the New Poland Express were accurate, although the margins predicted by the polls were, as usual not so wide and PiS nationally managed 23% against Platforma’s 32%. The SLD managed 15% as did the Peasants’ party (PSL) the latter’s best ever results. Of course in the local elections there are many minor party and locally independent candidates who take the rest of the votes. In Tychy the PO president was re-elected deservedly as he has greatly enhanced the public spaces and amenities of our town in recent years.

Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party looks set for a comfortable win in Sunday’s local elections with the main opposition party in disarray after a number of its members abandoned ship. As the clock ticks down to the weekend vote, opinion polls give Civic Platform (PO) a commanding 18 percent lead over Law and Justice (PiS) with 38 percent of the vote. To make matters worse for PiS, the polls give it just a slender lead over the third place party, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), while another poll shows that 44 percent of the electorate has a negative opinion of the party. Although Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS leader, can take heart that in the past opinion polls have tended to underestimate the support his party actually enjoys, when the results come in, the broad gap lead PO enjoys over PiS will heap more woe on the embattled party. In the past few weeks a steady trickle of its members have abandoned the PiS colours, and some of them have now formed a new political association: a move that many political commentators have interpreted as the first step to forming a rival political party to PiS. Entitled ‘Poland is the Most Important’ (‘Polska jest najwazniejsza’), its president is Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska - a leading light in the PiS ranks before she was recently expelled. Speaking at a press conference she said that PiS had failed to provide serious opposition to PO.

One can hope that this is yet another demonstration of the decreasing popularity of the paranoid PiS leader.

The next NPE snippet shows how the Catholic Church in Poland is exploiting the internet:

“Churches are now looking to the internet in an attempt to reach out to people. The parish of St.
Wojciecha in Lublin already has an ‘on-line congregation’ of 40 but is hoping to recruit more as the word spreads. “Establishing our Facebook profile was a joint decision by all our priests. While the
Head Vicar acts as administrator, I do take a look in from time to time,” says Father Jacek Wargocki.
“The creation of our profile does not mean it will replace the activity of parishioners or the personal participation in Mass,” adds Fr. Wargocki. “It can only be used as a supplement to everyday religious
practices.” But this new trend is not consigned to just a few parishes. Adam Bugiel, owner of webkoncept.pl, says that an increasing number of churches are beginning to get onboard the social networking bandwagon. “Contrary to popular belief, priests are very receptive to technological innovations”.