Four years of PiS

PiS (Law and Justice) looks like it has won an outright majority in the Polish parliament. Exit polls - usually an accurate indicator of the election outcome - give PiS 39.1% of the vote, with outgoing government PO (Civic Platform) - in power for the past eight years - gaining 23.4% of the vote. Other parties likely to get into the next Sejm - Kukiz '15 (whatever that is), Nowocześni 7.1%, and PSL (anachronistically translated into English as the Peasants' Party) with 5.2%. Failing to get in are the United Left (as an alliance of parties, ZLew failed to cross the 8% threshold, polling just 6.6%), KroWiN MiKKKe (4.9%) and Razem (3.9%).

How does this translate into seats? Out of 460 seats in the Sejm, PiS looks set to command 242, with PO having 133 seats; Kukiz '15 (until last year this guy was nothing than a pop singer) 44 seats; Ryszard Petru's Nowocześni (technocratic economic liberals) 22 seats and Polish politics' great survivors, PSL, with 18 seats.

We don't yet know the outcome of the Senate vote.

If this poll is accurate, we can expect a PiS government and a PiS president. The big question is how much damage will such a government do over the next four years. If election pledges are anything to go by, the cost of these (if they are indeed to be met) will be huge. Who'll pay? Foreign banks and supermarkets? The cost will be immense. Poland will cease to be a magnet for foreign investors, jobs growth will dry up and the pace of growth of the economy will start to slow.

The western media are already talking about the 'right wing' winning power - I equate 'right' with Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, privatisation, freedom and a tough stance against trade unions. If we're talking 'right' as in General Franco, then we're nearer the truth - the Big State and the Catholic Church, not deregulation and empowerment of the individual.

['Poland lurches to the right' bleats the Guardian. Hang on just one second - PiS's economic policies would gladden Jeremy Corbin's heart. Cut retirement age! Handouts to miners! Raise social security payments! Stop privatisation!]

Kukiz '15 will prove itself an irrelevance. Four years ago, Janusz Palikot created a party out of nothing around his own persona. That party entered parliament, as has Paweł Kukiz's newly-created party today. Palikot's party foundered and splintered and went nowhere, despite having a leader who was a professional politician and formerly a successful entrepreneur, and a clearly defined political position (economically and socially liberal). Kukiz has none of these attributes. The people who will have come into the next Sejm on his coat-tails are amateurs, Dude. They have no frame of reference, they'll be like children who wander into the middle of a movie.

Some of Kukiz's parliamentarians will quickly leave to shore up PiS's parliamentary majority, others will hit the tabloid headlines for all the wrong reasons. (Note to Poland's security services - these people are prime targets for the Kremlin's provocations.)

I published seven scenarios for the election, the first of which indeed came to pass. But one I totally missed was the destruction of Poland's social and economic left with both ZLew - an alliance of SLD and Palikot's Movement failing to cross the threshold. The reason was the excellent performance of Razem's Adrian Zandberg in the second TV debate. He showed that the minor left-wing party was in with a chance, pulling up its poll from 1% to nearly 4%, depriving ZLew of the votes needed to take it over the 8% threshold needed for an alliance.

The next four years will see old scores settled, attempts to rewrite recent (and indeed not-so-recent) history, bizarre economic policies and Poland - the powerhouse of Central and Eastern Europe until tonight - becoming increasingly marginalised in Brussels and in world politics.

But this is democracy. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. In four years time, things will come right again. No need to panic. I feel much calmer than I did in 2005.

In the meantime - five parties, four of which have some raison d'etre, seem likely to make up parliament. One thing is certain - tomorrow, Poland wakes up to a very different reality.

My main worry tonight is about government. The people who in Britain would be called the Civil Service, who in Poland are the professional administration - urzędnicy. The top layers will be culled for purely political reasons - "not our people". Regardless of their skills and commitment, they will be ousted and replaced by people who can be trusted in the party-political sense. Poland will lose many hard-working and talented administrators for no other good reason than for PiS to shoehorn in a buddy who needs a job (preferably with a chauffeured car, a big office and full secretarial backup).

Pan Prezes (of government agencies, regulatory authorities, state-owned enterprises) - your time is up. And many deputy presidents, directors of departments, as well.

I remember in 2005 meeting a PiS-installed deputy president of a state-owned agency saying that his job was to 'get rid of all the commies' in the next two years.

The danger with this approach is that you lose continuity and skills, often replacing people who genuinely care about what they are doing with people who know or care little about the subject.

No doubt the next four years will prove interesting to me professionally.

This time three years ago:
High Victorian Manchester

This time six years ago:
The clocks go back - but when should they go forward?

This time seven years ago:
Warsaw's first Metro line is completed