Irish Examiner view: Powerhouse Poland is at a political crossroads
The Civic Platform grouping headed by Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, represents the European mainstream in Poland. Picture: Jean-Francois Badias/AP
Two sets of expats in Ireland have weighty political matters to contemplate this weekend.
While Australians face a challenging question in their latest referendum, our Polish community, which numbers around 100,000 people, down from the Celtic Tiger days of 2004-2007, will be watching the outcome of an election in their mother country. And the rest of Europe will be paying anxious attention as well.
Voters go to the polls tomorrow in what has been a deeply contested and highly personalised campaign between the Law and Justice (PiS) party led by deputy prime minister Jaroslav Kaczynski and the Civic Platform grouping headed by Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council. Tusk represents the European mainstream while Kaczynski speaks for an increasingly conservative, populist and Eurosceptic tradition.
Around the world more than 608,000 members of the Polish diaspora have registered to vote, more than double the number in the previous election four years ago. PiS, which is seeking an unprecedented third term, has placed a limit on abortion rights while its opponents say they will legalise terminations up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. While Poland has been muscular in response to Russian aggression, as you might expect from a country which has experienced centuries of conflict and tension with Moscow, friction with Europe has been growing.
Brussels has withheld billions in EU assistance because of concerns over the independence of judges, and the erosion of democracy. Warsaw was outvoted over the recent plan for refugee quotas to be reallocated across member states and dislikes the policy almost as much as Hungary’s belligerent premier Viktor Orban.
Economically Poland is one of the shining stars of the bloc with output per person rising by 85% in the past decade compared to an EU average of 55%. Factory output is growing and has overtaken pre-pandemic levels and trends.
Chipmaking giant Intel has announced a €5bn factory near Wroclaw and Poland has overtaken the US to become the world’s second largest battery manufacturer with their vital future role in electric vehicle production. Infrastructure spending, including on roads, is accelerating while the nation — a heavy user of coal — is investing in its first nuclear plant for energy generation.
While the country is transforming itself into the powerhouse of Central Europe it has started to exercise the political heft which comes with such progress. Its dispute with Kyiv over grain exports, which affects the interests of its own farmers, even led it to threaten to stop delivering weapons to beleaguered neighbours.
Any political paralysis following tomorrow’s vote will provide succour to the Kremlin if it diminishes Poland’s ability to consistently support and promulgate Nato’s current position on Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion. For that reason alone, there are those who hope for a decisive victory, one way or the other.
Australia's parliament: Fading voices
At the outset of campaigning for Australia’s “Indigenous Voice” referendum towards the end of August we warned that initial enthusiasm for the concept was waning. And ahead of today’s vote we have no reason to change that view. Indeed, there is plenty of data to suggest that the proposition will be roundly rejected.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor government wants to legally enshrine an indigenous body to advise Canberra on policies and legislation affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who comprise 4% of the continent’s 26m population. It must be approved by a majority of the nation’s voters, and four out of the country’s six states of Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland.
Twelve months ago there was an approval rate of 63% but the final YouGov poll this week showed that those opposed to the proposal stood at 56% compared to 38% in the “Yes” camp. Some 6% of the 1,519 voters asked to participate in the survey were undecided.
Critics on the right say that no group in the country will enjoy a comparable, constitutionally-privileged, position while aboriginal leaders regard legislative change as a symbolic concession of their claims to sovereignty backed by a treaty.
Speaking on Australian television, a leading critic and author Ben Abbatangelo said “the idea that the people who stole this land, and then who directly benefited from it” are now going to hold a referendum “to think about recognising the people they stole it off is insane”. First Nations people perform behind white and new immigrant Australians on practically every socio-economic, health and education metric which you care to apply. No one has faith that this will be changed by Australia’s first referendum since voters rejected a proposal to become a republic in 1999. For campaigners the danger now is that the issue will be seen as toxic for Australia’s main political parties and returned to the back burner for a decade.
Paris match: Now is the hour
Have you heard the joke about the Englishman, the Irishman, and the New Zealander? It’s not the one about jam crumpets, but rather about the rugby coach who created one of the tastiest dishes in the sporting world.
Tonight’s epic encounter at Stade de France is nearly seven years since Joe Schmidt’s Ireland scored their first victory in 111 years over the All Blacks at Soldier’s Field in Chicago, a match which commenced with the team forming a number eight, while the haka was performed, in memory of the player and former Munster coach Anthony Foley who had died three weeks earlier.
Including that epochal day Ireland have won five of the last eight encounters. While the Englishman Andy Farrell guides the green jerseys, Joe Schmidt, the man who started the current sequence, is now the attack coach for the Kiwis.
Ireland must win tonight to deliver their best-ever World Cup return, and reach the semi-finals. In the words of the century-old sorrowful song which was used as a farewell to Maori soldiers embarking for the First World War, ‘Now Is The Hour’. Our nation hopes that this time will belong to us and that we will be waving goodbye in friendship to the mighty All Blacks.
