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PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifi
by scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifically aimed at appealing to the most vulnerable and uneducated segment of the population. Their core promise is a vision of family- and country-first and glory for the heroes of a vague past. In practice PiS rules by causing controversy after controversy which effectively splits the opposition and media, and mostly covers up for the dumbest corruption schemes ever. Most Poles have a distaste for Western European neoliberal politics and are center-right conservative if not libertarian with some liberal, but at this point everybody knows PiS is just filled with cynical and opportunistic apparatchiks. The worst part is that the people who control PiS are simply wicked clever. They’ve spent the last six years continuously running a never-ending political campaign with their media at full blast, and a stand-in president who is constantly traveling and visiting key-towns to meet-greet the communities. Right when they took power in 2015 they reformed the Supreme Court by firing a bunch of judges and installing loyalists effectively breaking the constitution. It’s like a dictatorship of stupid. And what must be said: it’s not that Poland is turning into an actual fascist dictatorship, not that much violence is happening and our political views aren’t being really repressed. The real problem is that PiS is actually strategically weakening us as a country and nation. Especially in our international relationships. This Pegasus spyware is only yet another such example of the BS. In my own personal opinion, at this point PiS has been doing everything so poorly that I suspect that they’re actually being supported and controlled by external adversaries behind the scenes.
- justapassenger 5y ago> PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifically aimed at appealing to the most vulnerable and uneducated segment of the population I don't disagree with rest of your comment. But that's nothing like gerrymandering. It's pure politics. Gerrymandering is choosing your voters, by meddling with an importance of each single vote. Politics is knowing your base and crafting message at them. No sane political party in the world tries to craft their policies to make everyone happy. Knowing your voters and telling them what they want to hear is politics 101.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y agoGerrymandering involves playing and redrawing the map to fit your electorate. PiS was accused of doing this in 2018 when attempts were made to do a large scale restructuring of the entire Warsaw region and the peripheries (where the PiS voters are in larger numbers) but the investigation wasn’t followed through. What’s more PiS has pushed through voting to happen mostly on Sundays when priests can literally tell people at scale to vote and who to vote for. It isn’t much of a secret that rural communities and towns apply pressures on citizens to vote for the correct choice. This is part of the Pegasus argument - that PiS uses many dirty tricks which take them beyond standard politics 101
- kgabis 5y agoCarving Warsaw out of Mazowieckie would be very beneficial to Warsaw itself because it wouldn't depend on PiS wojewoda anymore, too bad this idea has died out. And voting in Poland has always happened on Sundays.
- garaetjjte 5y agoThere's also thing of organizing contests to increase turnout (that districts with highest turnout will get extra fire truck) in rural areas, in order to improve their results, as they have higher support in rural areas than cities.