Democracy Digest: Poland’s Populists Stand on Shakier Ground

Still smarting from losing the Senate by a whisker earlier this month, Poland's governing populists are contesting the result.

Opposition parties won 48 seats in the upper house, helped by a strategy of not fielding candidates against each other. Combined with the votes of three independents who support them, that gives the opposition just enough clout to control the chamber.

After several unsuccessful attempts to woo opposition lawmakers and independents to its ranks, PiS decided to challenge the Senate result in six constituencies in the Supreme Court. If the court overturns the result in two or more constituencies, PiS will regain control.

According to complaints filed to the Supreme Court by PiS, published in full (in Polish) by oko.press, the governing party did not present evidence to suggest the count was wrong. Instead, its reasoning seems more like wishful thinking.

"Establishing that 10 per cent of the votes were incorrectly nullified, when they really should have been considered as votes for PiS, would mean that the PiS candidate won the most votes," the party said.

Experts were left scratching their heads as to why PiS thinks 10 per cent of votes were incorrectly nullified — and why, even if they were, they should have gone to PiS.

On Thursday, the State Electoral Commission gave its opinion on one of PiS's complaints, saying it saw no grounds to recount votes. It said it expected to come to a similar conclusion on the other five complaints. 

The complaints will ultimately be assessed by the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs at the Supreme Court, a body created from scratch by PiS as part of controversial justice reforms introduced since it came to power in 2015.

Furthermore, members of...