-- CZARZASTY PRAISES BIEDROŃ, BIEDROŃ ON NEW POLITICS - 300LIVE: https://300polityka.pl/live/2018/10/26/

-- VOTER TURNOUT NOT ONLY INFLUENCED TRZASKOWSKI'S SUCCESS BUT PRIMARILY HELPED PIS WIN THE ELECTIONS - Jakub Szymczak in Oko: “This time, PiS politicians are telling the truth – the party indeed received the largest number of votes in the history of regional assembly elections. Moreover, they improved their result from 2014 by over 2 million votes. One of the reasons is the turnout, which was over 7 percentage points higher, reaching almost 55%. As it turns out, the record voter mobilization in local government elections not only helped Rafał Trzaskowski to win the Warsaw mayoral election in impressive style but also contributed to PiS's good result.”
https://oko.press/rekordowe-53-mln-glosow-na-pis-kaczynski-nakrecil-frekwencje-dyscyplina-wieksza-niz-w-po-i-n/

-- NEW PSL RESISTANT TO PI'S AFFECTION - Agata Kondzińska and Iwona Szpala in GW: “How much PSL will gain – it's unknown. Off the record, PO politicians resent the peasant party for not being able to stir up sentiments on the ground. – They didn't want to be a strong anti-PiS force, even though we advised them to. What was their campaign like? The result shows it – just under 13%. Compared to what they had, they were simply beaten by PiS – says an important PO politician. But PSL has a response: without the peasant party, Kaczyński's camp would have had 40% support. Dariusz Klimczak, deputy head of PSL: – We are resistant to the affection that PiS has suddenly bestowed upon us. They spat on us, lied, slandered, attacked us, and the 'new PSL' does not forget that.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,24092952,z-politycznymi-terrorystami-sie-nie-negocjuje-psl-odporne.html

-- PIS WON, BUT HAS REASONS TO WORRY - Michał Szułdrzyński in RZ: “PiS faces two difficult electoral battles, and its ability to attract new voters may already be limited. PiS made many mistakes in the campaign, mobilizing its opponents more than its supporters, due to its increasingly radical messaging. The results in large cities are indicative of this. To be assured of victory next year, PiS would have to completely change its rhetoric, but the question is whether it can afford to do so today.”
https://www.rp.pl/Wybory-samorzadowe/181029500-PiS-wygral-Ale-ma-powody-do-zmartwien.html

-- SYLWESTER RUSZKIEWICZ IN WP ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR PIS'S REFUGEE AD: “According to information from Wirtualna Polska, the originators of the election ad about refugees are people associated with the company Solvere – the same one responsible for the 'Fair Courts' campaign. It was the ad about immigrants that reportedly contributed to PiS's weaker electoral result. (...) We confirmed the involvement of these individuals through sources related to PiS leadership. Also, in conversations with people from the Prime Minister's Chancellery. They also believe the ad was the biggest mistake of this campaign. – PiS leadership believes that because of this ad, the party lost power in 2-3 regional assemblies. And received a few percent less nationwide. However, the most painful was Patryk Jaki's defeat in the first round. It was a showcase campaign; everyone in PiS was convinced that Jaki would make it to the second round. The ad mobilized Warsaw residents to vote for Rafał Trzaskowski – says our informant, a member of the PiS election staff.”
https://wiadomosci.wp.pl/ujawniamy-to-byli-wlasciciele-firmy-solvere-stali-za-spotem-pis-o-uchodzcach-6309824215619713a

-- TOMASZ PIETRYGA ON PI'S MANEUVERING FLIGHT WS JUDGES: “If PiS now creates, in fulfillment of the CJEU's decision, such a legal path for return, the judges will suddenly face a serious dilemma. However, their current stance suggests that they are unlikely to take this path, maintaining that the CJEU's decision itself is sufficient for their return. This will create another knot in an unsolvable legal conflict. But it will also provide an excellent alibi for the ruling camp, suggesting they prepared solutions for the judges' return, only that they don't want to use them.”
https://www.rp.pl/Opinie/310259903-PiS-u-lot-manewrujacy---komentuje-Tomasz-Pietryga.html

-- SIENKIEWICZ: THE STATE WILL WITHER, REPLACED BY THE PARTY. AND THEN COMES BARBARISM - in conversation with Michał Sutowski in Krytyka Polityczna: “PiS is a great dinosaur – we won't build an equally great one, and there's no time for it. There's no going back to how things were. Victory is the ability of clever mammals to cooperate and take social territory from the dinosaur. Let's take an example from evolution. It has proven effective…”

-- SIENKIEWICZ URGES LIBERAL OPPOSITION NOT TO STIGMATIZE VOTERS: “Indeed, I believe that insulting voters is the worst possible path in a democracy. PiS's victory came about by taking over the center. And since the game is being played for the center, not for the right-wing factions, one must find common ground with people. This certainly does not involve stigmatizing them for past mistakes; rather, one should acknowledge the reasons behind their choices in 2015 and offer a better narrative for them, which is quite obvious…”

-- SIENKIEWICZ WARNS AGAINST DEMANTLING STATE POWER TO THE OUTSKIRTS: “This is precisely a recipe for increasing already high regional inequalities, and for triggering populist logic before every local election – candidates will compete in tax reduction offers. However, I am more concerned about the ideas to limit state power to the outskirts of the capital – because that is precisely what the proposal to abolish the voivode's office means. It's a horror given current global trends. I would say that we are dealing not so much with a crisis of liberalism, but with the crisis of a state and government that have been liberal since the post-war period. Whether there were Christian Democrats or Social Democrats in power, the shift made in Western Europe after the war was very similar. And on this, incredible prosperity and peace for two generations were built.”

-- THE STATE IN ATROPHY IS BEING REPLACED BY NAKED POLITICAL FORCE - SIENKIEWICZ TELLS SUTOWSKI: “Of course, the withering of the state in Poland is a process that didn't bother us before because we had excellent economic and geopolitical conditions. Now, however, this state in atrophy is being replaced by naked political force, where the party pretends to be the state.”

-- WHAT SIENKIEWICZ TOLD SUTOWSKI A WEEK BEFORE THE ELECTION ABOUT THE LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS: “So one could say that if PiS shifts in 3-4 regional assemblies, they only took that premium. But what if they shift in 8? That would mean that after 3 years of this war, PiS's march through institutions, especially those closest to Poles, has not been halted. So this will be the ultimate test of the opposition's policy effectiveness; there will be no other. And this is regardless of the fact that large cities will be out of reach for PiS.”

-- STOŁECZNA CRITICIZES TRZASKOWSKI FOR SPEAKING DIFFERENTLY ABOUT SKRA THAN IN THE CAMPAIGN: “The city cannot bear this alone – this is what Rafał Trzaskowski, the newly elected mayor of Warsaw, told 'Stołeczna' regarding the construction of the new Skra stadium. He said something different about this investment during the campaign.”
http://warszawa.wyborcza.pl/warszawa/7,54420,24092588,zwijanie-sztandarow-trzaskowski-mowi-o-obiecywanej-inwestycji.html

-- WŁADYSŁAW FRASYNIUK ON NON-PARTISAN LOCAL OFFICIALS - THE MENTALITY OF KACYKS - says in conversation with Jacek Harłukowicz: “This is nothing other than the mentality of local kacyks, mirroring the thinking of national kacyks. It's time to say it loudly: someone is responsible for this.”

-- ACCORDING TO FRASYNIUK, SCHETYNA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POTENTIAL TAKEOVER OF THE LOWER SILESIAN ASSEMBLY: “Grzegorz Schetyna. It was he personally who suffered defeat, not only in his own region but also in the stronghold of Civic Platform. And he did so precisely by pursuing his own narrow interests. In politics, there is a rule that there is nothing that cannot be messed up. And the leader of the Platform is an example of this. (...) If Schetyna had joined Platform to Dutkiewicz's coalition, if they had put up a joint assembly list, they would not have lost the elections in Lower Silesia. I hope someone wise will undertake an analysis someday and calculate how many seats pro-democratic forces lost in the assembly due to the ambitions of the PO leader, who, out of personal animosity, did not even agree to Rafał Dutkiewicz running on his list. The votes he might have garnered would certainly have given the Platform another seat. But he decided it wasn't necessary for him. A tragedy.”

-- SCHETYNA DOES NOT INSPIRE TRUST - FRASYNIUK CONTINUES WITH HARŁUKOWICZ: “With such a huge negative electorate that Grzegorz Schetyna has, there is no money that would allow him to win. And if he wants to persist, he should at least learn from President Kaczyński that he must hide during elections. Elections need a leader who inspires trust. Schetyna does not. In a few months, he will face another test – the European Parliament elections. Our side must put up a joint, pro-European list in them, composed of people who will prevent Poland from leaving the EU. And then, together, they will take power from PiS in Poland. And just as I said that in politics there is nothing that cannot be messed up, there is also nothing that cannot be fixed.”
http://wroclaw.wyborcza.pl/wroclaw/7,35771,24092916,frasyniuk-komentuje-wyniki-wyborow-grzegorz-schetyna-przegral.html

-- SŁAWOMIR SIERAKOWSKI NOTICES SCHETYNA'S ROLE: “Instead, there are spectacular victories in the largest cities (more first-round wins than four years ago) and the defense of positions in most of Poland against the ruling party, which threw all its forces, including public media, the entire government, and promised miracles to everyone. It was not an equal fight, yet Civic Coalition and PSL together are winning against PiS. It is therefore worth noting, alongside Trzaskowski, Zdanowska, Jaśkowiak, and others, Schetyna, who is responsible for the whole.”

-- SIERAKOWSKI REFUTES ARGUMENTS ABOUT SCHETYNA'S LACK OF CHARISMA: “And what about Schetyna's famous lack of charisma? You can't get anywhere in politics without it. The truth is, nothing does more for charisma than election percentages. If you have success, you have charisma, not the other way around. Miller didn't have charisma, but when he started winning, people began to call him 'Chancellor' with admiration and fear. Before Tusk began to inspire widespread admiration, he was a boy in short pants, a slacker, and an author of books about the charms of Gdańsk.”
https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/tylko-w-onecie/schetyna-udowodnil-ze-potrafi-wygrywac-opinia/

-- TOMASZ SIEMONIAC ON A NEW INDICATOR OF WHO WON THE ELECTIONS - NOT ALL VOIVODESHIPS ARE EQUAL - as he says in a conversation with Łukasz Rogojsz in gazeta.pl: “When assessing election results, I always say that one must look at one thing – the population of the regions where we will co-govern and where PiS has gained power. In our case, it's as many as 23 million people. So, it's clear that not all voivodeships are equal. When accounting for the Civic Coalition's result, we must also remember the polls, which just a few weeks before the first round showed a huge gap between us and PiS. After the elections, it turned out that in reality, it was only six percentage points. PiS has been very clearly stopped.”
http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7,114884,24091525,wyniki-wyborow-samorzadowych-siemoniak-o-wyniku-wyborow-pis.html#s=BoxOpLink

-- MICHAŁ KARNOWSKI DEFENDS KURSKI - IT'S ABOUT RESIGNING FROM SUBJECTIVITY: “The entire GW operation isn't about President Kurskki at all. It's about ensuring that the new nominee brings about TVP's resignation from subjectivity, that it abandons independent agenda building, and starts constructing an elitist message, while simultaneously bidding farewell to reaching large social groups. Consequently, when the opposition manages to trigger a crisis again, when it organizes another escalation of tension, when it gets close to the desired 'Maidan,' the media center capable of naming and describing it from another angle is to be destroyed, stripped of its ability to react. Such competencies are built over a long time, destroyed in a few weeks.”
https://wpolityce.pl/m/polityka/418368-komus-bardzo-zalezy-by-prawica-zapomniala-o-puczach

-- JACEK KARNOWSKI ON JAN ŚPIEWAK: “I don't rule out that Jan Śpiewak didn't have such intentions. Perhaps his relative lack of political experience suggested a bizarre scenario of attacking Jaki, which was also an attack on his own political foundations. But it happened: the reprivatization mafia has the right to believe that good times are returning. If even frauds of this scale haven't changed anything in Warsaw, then is there anything to fear? Perhaps in this situation, Jan Śpiewak should refrain from writing his doctorate until the verification committee concludes its work. There is an opportunity to not leave this matter in such a sad state. There is an opportunity to help Jaki, while simultaneously proving that the intentions accompanying this unfortunate campaign were truly impeccably noble.”
https://wpolityce.pl/m/polityka/418369-czy-jan-spiewak-naprawi-bledy-z-kampanii-i-pomoze-jakiemu

-- PIS IS NOT IN RETREAT - ALEKSANDER KWAŚNIEWSKI - in conversation with Agnieszka Kublik in GW: “And returning to the local government elections, certainly, all those who would like to claim that PiS is in retreat are mistaken. Agreed, they achieved less than they expected, but they are undoubtedly the strongest party in Poland. And one must face this truth. Local government elections have such a nature – and this is a great advantage of self-governance in Poland – that they broaden the map of political pluralism. Every party can announce that something good has happened for them. PiS says they won, though not as they wanted. Civic Coalition – that they are the strongest in cities and are back in the game. PSL says: they wanted to kill us, but we are alive. SLD: well, it's not great, but we are above the election threshold. And Kukiz'15: we are a young party on the rise, we are also above the threshold, so it's good. This is the nature of local government elections, and I am glad it is so. Because Poland needs political pluralism, not a monopoly party.”

-- KWAŚNIEWSKI APPEALS FOR PI'S COMPROMISE WITH BRUSSELS: “PiS has two options. Show that they are still reaching an agreement with the EC, that they are not an anti-European party. Or say: 'No, Brussels will not tell us what to do,' and go for a sharp conflict. This going for sharpness is a great risk because the EP elections will de facto mean voting either for pro-European forces or anti-European ones. If that happens, PiS will not win a fifth consecutive election. The second option, a hard game with Brussels, would be more favorable to the opposition, although fatal for Poland. So I would prefer and appeal to the president – may non-energy-saving light bulbs shine upon him and may these same bulbs illuminate the leaders of PiS – to go for a compromise with the EC. Accept the CJEU's decisions, amend the necessary laws, swallow the return of Supreme Court judges sent into retirement and the presidency of Ms. Gersdorf.”
http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,24093123,aleksander-kwasniewski-pis-musi-isc-na-kompromis-z-ue.html

-- RAINBOW FRIDAY IRRITATED THE RIGHT - GW's lead story: “MPs, the Minister of Education and subordinate education superintendents, and Father Tadeusz Rydzyk tried to block the organization of 'Rainbow Friday' in schools. Nevertheless, lessons on tolerance towards LGBTQI youth will still be held in over 200 institutions today.”
http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,24093271,teczowy-piatek-rozdraznil-prawice-jedna-szkola-juz-sie-wycofala.html

-- JUSTYNA SUCHECKA ON ZALEWSKA'S REACTION TO RAINBOW FRIDAY: “Teachers know best what their students need. They talk to them and their parents. And they shouldn't be threatened by the minister of education when responding to their needs. Madam minister, the times of central control over Polish education are long behind us! I believe that teachers will not be intimidated by any threats and will do their job. Not only because they are tolerant, but also because the well-being of students is most important to them.”
http://wyborcza.pl/7,75968,24093134,zalewska-straszy-nauczycieli-z-powodu-teczowego-piatku-mam.html

-- BIRTHDAYS: Janusz Palikot, Dorota Drozd, Tomasz Janowski.