Lots of PR and hype, few details; escape tensions in the opposition forward – this is how the statement on the Senate pact is judged by PiS senator Marek Pęk. According to him, the pact “is a kind of fraud, because the candidates have nothing in common in terms of program or ideology, except the slogan to remove PiS from power.”
Politicians from four opposition groups and a representative of the Local Government Movement “Yes! For Poland” signed a declaration on Tuesday of the conclusion of the so-called Senate pact. We are facing the most important election since 1989; we know how much depends on whether we are together in this election, they said. The conference, at which the signing of the declaration was announced, was attended by: a representative of the local government, former president of Gliwice, Senator KO Zygmunt Frankiewicz, Secretary General of PO Marcin Kierwiński, Senator of Poland 2050 Jacek Bury, Deputy Chief of the New Left Dariusz Wieczorek and Deputy Chairman of the Sejm, MP of PSL Piotr Zgorzelski.
Repetition of previous elections
Commenting on this statement, Pęk judged it to be “no surprise”.
From the very beginning of this term one could expect a repeat of the previous elections, when such a pact was made. However, I am quite disappointed with this conference, as there were no details attached to it, apart from the fact that the leading opposition groups are now declaring that they will not compete with each other in the Senate. It is not known in which districts or who – for now we have no names, and in elections to the Senate, single mandate, majority, the most important are those personalities who will run
– he said.
The fact that these gentlemen have made such a commitment today does not mean that this will be the case until the end, because not only party candidates are candidates in the elections for the Senate, but also local personalities from the cultural or scientific world. , there may still be many surprises, many additional candidates. We will certainly not sit still, we are constantly thinking about candidates for the Senate, so as not to allow the situation that this election becomes such a plebiscite of PiS – anti PiS
– added the PiS politician.
I must also make it clear that a pact drawn up in such a way as the one announced today is a form of fraud because, in fact, these candidates have nothing in common in terms of program or ideology other than the slogan ” to remove PiS from power.” And anti-PiS as an offer to 38 million Poles for Senate elections is certainly not enough in my opinion
– ruled the Deputy Speaker of the Senate.
According to Pęk, the Senate Pact is also a “flight forward”.
Because we see that there is a lot of tension, competition and individual ambitions on the side of the opposition. And this agreement must show that at least this Senate must be reached in this way. I think in principle this will happen, but there is no reason to count on a parliamentary pact, and this is a key issue. The Senate agreement will not change anything here, because the start of a joint list would mean the destruction of parties such as PSL or Szymon Hołownia’s party – all this would benefit only the largest – Donald Tusk and PO
he said.
I think the opposition exaggerates the importance of this pact for marketing purposes because as you can see it has been possible to govern without the Senate for more than 3 years although it is not easy and lengthens the legislative process but the most important decisions are made in the Sejm, where the main political instruments lie. So – a lot of PR, hype, little detail, and the election and the whole campaign is ahead of us, and we as PiS are ready for this clash
he stated.
PiS response
He noted that PiS is currently “carefully analyzing election geography.”
It’s no secret that some of our mistakes in the campaign, ignoring the enemy, led to our defeat where we expected to win. There are also districts in which it is difficult for us to win – that is, large cities. We focus on identifying better candidates in those districts where we could have won, and we didn’t, and run a decent campaign there
he stressed.
We will also try to fight for the cities, but here we will have to look for candidates who are not clearly associated with the party, because the offer of a strong PiS activist in big cities will not work. We will focus on cities other than Warsaw – such as Lublin, Przemyśl, Rzeszów, Białystok, there are several options to use
said Pek.
According to him, “it is a good coincidence that there are local elections a few months after the parliamentary elections and local government officials can take the opportunity to run for the Senate as part of such a pre-campaign for local government .”
This is also an opportunity to break this senate pact, to encourage people to run so voters can choose from more than 2 candidates – PiS and anti-PiS. It is crucial for democracy, the debate about personalities and programs, not to allow such a propaganda-negative plebiscite “PiS – anti-PiS” to take place all over Poland.
– added.
Among other things, the document signed on Tuesday states that “the final approval of the lists of candidates under the Pact of the Senate 2023 and the Rules for Participation in the Elections will be made through decisions in accordance with the Statutes of the Parties to this Agreement within the time limit agreed by the organizing team.”
The first senatorial pact was concluded before the parliamentary elections in 2019 by the main opposition groups – Civic Coalition, PSL and the left. Although it was not strictly enforced everywhere (e.g. in Łódź, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, a former PO politician, ran as an independent candidate and defeated the candidate from the left, Małgorzata Niewiadomska-Cudak. There were also constituencies where, for example, candidates from PSL and fought on the left), thanks to him the opposition jointly won at least the elections for the Senate.
gah/PAP
Source: wPolityce