Word: pis
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...While PIS leaders are avowedly Euro-skeptic, Polish public opinion remains staunchly pro-European (not surprising, perhaps, given the $6 billion in subsidies Poles receive from the E.U. each year). Moreover, whatever the rhetoric about the dangers of capitalism, Poland's economy is booming, with gdp growth topping 6% last year, and unemployment finally beginning to fall. In time, economic growth, if it continues, may take the edge off the fear-based politics that has taken hold in Poland. Back in Ozarow, Grazyna Bialowas admits that since her beloved factory closed, the town has actually improved, with a Best Western...
That appears to be a lot of people. The PIS looks poised for victory in Oct. 21 parliamentary elections, even though the last government it led collapsed just two months ago. The latest polls put the party a few points ahead of the opposition Civic Platform (PO), suggesting that it will again be charged with forming a governing coalition, with Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a prominent position; his brother's term as President does not expire until 2010. That may be a sobering prospect for Poland's E.U. partners, but the Kaczynskis don't answer to them at the polls. Speaking...
That mistrust provides fertile ground for the Kaczynski brothers' conspiracy-minded brand of politics. Founded in 2001, PIS promised to rid Poland of what it calls the uklad, a supposed cabal of former communist officials and businessmen who they claim have controlled the country since 1989. Radek Sikorski, a former PIS member and Defense Minister, says the Kaczynskis were elected in 2005 because "they reflected the public mood of disgust with the previous regime." They are clearly at pains to project a simple, clean-living image. Jaroslaw, the Prime Minister, lives with his mother and a cat and does...
...Kaczynskis have been merciless with their own critics. Even fellow PIS politicians have been sacked for disagreeing with the Prime Minister. When former Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek criticized a proposed law that would have required virtually all Polish professionals to declare whether or not they had collaborated with the communist secret police, Jaroslaw Kaczynski said he was sullying Poland's good name...
...declaration, arguing that the government was trying to intimidate its enemies. "We are seeing the first real flowering of populism in the post-communist East," he told TIME. The Civic Platform is expected to pick up votes among the so-called élites that the Kaczynskis attack, but the PIS still appeals to a broader range of voters across society...