Word: pis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...between Poland's rural and urban electorate. While the Civic Platform drew most of its support from what pollsters now refer to as Poland A - urban, educated, younger voters - the rural, older, more devout voters who make up Poland B favored Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party (PIS) and other parties. In crude terms, the first group includes the winners of Poland's economic transition; the second group, the losers...
...Wroclaw is only one version of Poland. Many of the 40% of Poles who still live in smaller towns take a different view. In the village of Radecznica, nestled in rolling hills near the Ukrainian border, some 45% of the 6,500 inhabitants voted for the PIS in the last election; Tusk's party got only 10%. The region is poor: Radecznica's sole employer is a state mental institution. The town lacks paved roads and even a sewage system. Mayor Gabryel Gabka, 58, has applied for European Union money to build one. "But even if we get it, there...
...help places like Radecznica. Tusk acknowledges as much. His party doesn't promote the liberal label and has tried to show a social conscience. During the past election, for example, unsanctioned text messages urged young voters to "hide your grandma's ID" (so that she couldn't vote PIS). The Civic Platform countered with a message that voters should bring Grandma along to the voting booth and explain to her that her future, too, depends on growth...
Tusk needs the cooperation of the opposition - and of Poland B - to push through the legislative changes he believes Poland needs. The opposition, both on the left and the populist right, is not disposed to tolerance. A failure to deliver on promises, PIS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski warned recently, could produce "serious social conflict" and "social depression." Certainly Poland has had more than its share of both those ills. "I spent an important part of my life participating in conflicts," says Tusk. "But for me conflict was not the main principle." His central task is to heal the ideological divisions...
...bridge the gap between urban and rural Poland? It's also a geographical and historical divide. Western Poland tends to support the Civic Platform; eastern Poland supports the PIS. Those borderlines were shaped in the 14th and 15th centuries. To reach across them, the key thing is improving education...