The Political Circus

It’s election time here in Poland. There is always a tragi-comic side to the spectacle. The ex-president Kwasniewski gave a speech seemingly under the influence of alcohol, later explaining that he was suffering from the effects of a mysterious virus he brought back from the Philippines. The maverick politician Korwin-Mikke who has recently been brought under the wing of the League of Polish Families has surpassed even himself in giving offence, announcing at a public meeting that children with handicaps should go to separate schools so that the other pupils won’t catch anything. He added insult to injury by speaking to a girl in a wheelchair personally and expressing his incredulous amusement at the idea of her taking part in PE lessons. (She is a champion swimmer and dancer).

The Self-Defence party (many of whom seem to have criminal convictions and enjoy immunity as members of parliament) after sharing power with the government for a while seem to have temporarily disappeared from view. The Women’s Party, with a programme which seems well worth voting for to me, declare, in possibly alienating fashion, that Poland is a woman. You could say that identity issues figure highly in Polish politics.

Meanwhile the Law and Justice Party is in power, and the identical twins still known as the two little boys who hunted the moon from a television programme which featured them as child stars, now run the country as president and prime minister. Their latest political victory is the prevention of the European Day against the Death Penalty.

It’s probably just as well that I don’t have the vote here as I don’t know what I would do with it. Looking at it all from a slight distance, it seems absurd, slightly scary. The election circus seems to bring out all aspects of human behaviour larger than life, except, possibly, for integrity and respect. But then again, if I were back in the UK, would I really be able to vote with conviction either? Looking at the UK media there seems to be less going on, the parties resemble each other and the continuum for judgement by the general public seems to run from ‘trying to be trendy’ to ‘being boring’.

Meanwhile, in Poland, the literary canon studied in schools has been censored to fit nationalistic and ‘family’ values, and in the UK civil liberties we have taken for granted for decades are being silently eroded. I have decided to spend less time being amused and/or disgusted by the behaviour, not to mention the personal style, of our elected representatives, and more time on identifying and studying the issues. And maybe even doing something myself.

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