It's later than you think

The parliamentary elections are coming up in nine days time. I must confess to a gentle, creeping, withdrawal from politics; the campaign is making the front pages and the main items on the TV news - and I find myself not reading, not watching, on the basis that it's all dull and repetitive. I know what each talking head is going to say, and therefore, trying to make the best use of my time, I simply switch off. I know how I'm going to vote - and yes, I'm most certainly going to vote.

I am worried. The polls - which consistently showed PO ahead of PiS by 15 to 20 points - are now indicating a mere three points lead for PO. Why has it shrunk so, and what could this mean?

PiS has returned to its strategy from before last summer's presidential election: tone down the Mr Angry rhetoric, appear moderate in tone - and - in an absolute master stroke that political parties worldwide would do well to copy - have put up thousands of billboards showing a collection of elegant and no doubt fragrant women, smiling benignly down upon the voting public. What could be more reasonable? Not a trace of post-Smolensk ranting, not a whiff of memory of the last time PiS was in power (in a bizarre coalition with the late Andrzej Lepper's potato-throwing Samobrona and the frankly nuts LPR); the paranoia, the witch-hunts, the loss of international prestige...

I was going to put an updated version of my Just Say No To Beton Jarka logo on the blog, but PiS has propelled its public image so far away from that of a ranting awanturnik stirring enmity, distrust and paranoia, that in this election campaign it appears far-fetched.

The Polish electorate has a poor short-term memory and an equally poor grasp of economic realities. The global economy is heading for another recession. Poland will escape economic contraction in 2012 - momentum is too great to see 3.8%-4% growth turning into a contraction within five quarters - but what happens in 2013 depends to a great extent on the economic policies that are pursued by whoever is governing Poland next year.

Any populism - which at this stage of the economic cycle means failure to cut public spending rather than simply go on increasing it - will result in the things that are dragging down Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland happening here. Poland is in good shape to ride out the next storm - providing it sticks to fiscal rectitude and battens down the hatches. I certainly trust Jacek Rostowski more when it comes to pointing the ship of state in the right direction than any PiS, SLD or PSL candidate for the post of finance minister.

Think long and hard about the Poland you want. We're in for troubled times. We need grown ups at the helm - foreign policy, financial and economic policy being absolutely key. This is no time to wobble, to cast your vote on a whim, for some minority issue; it's about keeping the silly-billies away from the tiller of government.

If you can vote next Sunday, don't, whatever you do, let them win. Take it damn seriously.

This time last year:
Melancholy autumn mood in Łazienki

This time three years ago:
Autumn gold, Zamienie

This time four years ago:
Flamenco Sketches - Seville