The most attention recently was surely the Hamas’ attack on Israel. The most critical question to me: Will Hezbollah/Lebanon get involved? If that happens, a lot more will burn.
For the men who stare at prediction markets, there is not really anything we can do though. Meanwhile this weekend, a critical election comes along in Poland.
What is going on?
The leading party PiS has the problem that only the extreme-right Konfederacja party seems available for a coalition and according to polls, they might not get enough votes for a majority (31% chance only). Meanwhile the opposition KO+TD+NL is closer (67% chance), but getting the votes does not necessarily mean that they can agree to form a government.
From a western point of view, PiS is not a good choice because they are anti-democratic:
“(The election) is perceived as the last chance to reverse the process of democratic backsliding, through democratic means,” Kucharczyk told CNN. “The concern here is that if PiS remains in power for another four years, they will close the gaps in the authoritarian system that they’ve been building for the last eight years.” (CNN 2023-10-07)
Second, the potential partner Konfederacja wants to stop support for Ukraine:
“One likely outcome is a coalition between PiS and Confederation, and that would be very bad news for Polish-Ukrainian relations” (CNN 2023-10-07)
There is also a referendum associated with the election but that it does not look fair to me. They just want to influence voters to focus on certain framed topics. Ignore that.
Since the election is considered a pivotal fight about democracy, Poland’s democracy index forecast might be worth watching next week, when they will argue about coalitions.
The german edition, Marktweise, was about recent elections in two german states. I learned some lessons and hope to cover the 2024 European Parliament election better.
Will this newsletter reaches 100 subscribers by the end of the month? I’m betting NO, so you can bet YES, help me reach that, and get my Mana.
Probably until next week, lovely readers! 😊