Polish "right" splits. Again.

For casual observers of the Polish political scene, you may be interested that for the third time there's been a split in Poland's main "right"* wing party - Prawo i Sprawidliwość (PiS - Law and Justice). This time angry young man, former justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro has marched off with 15 other newly-elected PiS deputies to form a new party (tentatively 'Solidarna Polska' - er... translation anyone? Poland of Solidarity? Loyal Poland? Joint and Several Poland?).

This is yet another schism in Poland's "right". The last one was when 15 PiSite deputies left Jarosław Kaczyński's party to form PJN - Polska Jest Najważniejsza (literally 'Poland Is Most Important') in November 2010. These splitters promptly achieved 2% in the latest parliamentary elections.

Before that? Marek Jurek. Remember him, readers? Former Speaker of the Sejm. He got upset that PiS was not religiously reactionary enough for his tastes, so he formed Prawica Rzeczpospolitej (The Right of the Republic) taking six PiS deputies with him in April 2007. Like PJN after him, his party got absolutely nowhere in subsequent parliamentary elections.

Why is it that PiS keeps fragmenting? Is it because of a conviction that under its leader (and co-founder, along with his late twin brother Lech) PiS will never regain power? Or because of Jarosław's authoritarian manner, his inability to placate competing egos, his sense of absolute conviction in the rightness of his argument? Or, indeed both?

What if things were different? Many commentators have said that PiS's 30% at the recent parliamentary election was a good showing, and that the party couldn't have hoped to have squeezed any more votes. But look at Hungary's Fidesz - a party that occupies the same quadrant of the political chart. Patriotic, traditional yet not a party to yield up the commanding heights of the economy to free enterprise. And yet it enjoys a constitution-changing two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament. So it is possible to win elections in this part of Europe with a PiSite world-view.

Meanwhile, Ruch Poparcia Palikota (UK readers - imagine a party called something like 'The Movement to Support Mandelson' and you'll not be far off) has finally realised it's time to shed the one-man band image, being the third-largest party in the lower house, and seeks a new name - in a nationwide contest. An ad agency asked by TVN news to devise one came up with '665' - as in 'the lesser evil'. Nice. We shall see what the people dream up...

And so, with the "right" divided, the SLD parliamentary club run by opportunist Leszek Miller, (changing parties as often as PiS has splintered, premier when Poland was at its most corrupt) rendering the post-communist party unelectable, Donald Tusk effectively has no opposition.

He MUST take the opportunity to force through badly-needed fiscal reforms, improve Poland's business environment, speed up delivery of infrastructure projects, or face his only real threat to political power - the markets.

* Why "right" in inverted commas? Because unlike American Republicans or British Conservatives, PiS is not a free-market party. It believes in a large state and mistrusts entrepreneurs.

This time last year:
Tesco vs. Auchan

This time four years ago:
My father's house