Poland votes for change
Sunday was a great day for Polish democracy. Voters bucked the
apathy of the last general election in 2005 in which only 40 per
cent of them bothered to cast a ballot by pushing turnout up by at
least one third. Young people especially voted in large numbers,
most of them against the main conservative Law and Justice
governing party led by the Kaczynski twin brothers and in favour of
the liberal-right Civic Platform. In doing this so decisively they
have helped form a more stable party system to replace one that was
dangerously fragmented and unrepresentative. Most important, they
have strongly expressed their rejection of the outgoing
government's crude populist nationalism and the damage it inflicted
on their country's role and reputation in Europe. Login or subscribe for more.
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