Parliamentary elections 2023. Paweł Kukiz: I have not voted with PiS since October 2022. Not true

During the morning conversation on September 7 on RMF FM radio Paweł Kukiz explained that he was running for the Sejm again “only to make sure that PiS implements the agreement.” This includes: on the issue of changing the electoral law to mixed majority-proportional and introducing justices of the peace to the judiciary. Kukiz announced that if PiS wins the elections and exercises power on its own, then “if it does not implement these demands, I simply leave the whole relationship because they do not keep the contract.” To the interviewer Rafał Mazurek’s remark that he had already said a hundred times: “If they don’t do something to me, I will leave”, Kukiz replied:

Then he handed Mazurek documents from the Sejm Research Bureau, which were supposed to show that Borys Budka or Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz “voted many times more often” than he from PiS. And he added: “However, they announced in their media that Kukiz votes like PiS, which is simply nonsense.”

This is not the first time that Paweł Kukiz argues that he has not voted like PiS MPs since October 2022. And this is about his famous declaration of September 29, 2022, when after a meeting with Jarosław Kaczyński, he stated: “There are no judges of the peace, so joint votes with Law and Justice are ending – whether regarding the new government or any other act “.

Kukiz repeated this declaration several more times. For example, on October 25 in RMF FM, he stated: “I am not voting together with PiS, and especially I am not going to vote with Solidarna Polska, which blocks justices of the peace.” On October 27, he spoke about it in “Trójka Political Salon”: “And since October 1, I have not voted with PiS. Therefore, until this law is in place, these votes with PiS are suspended.” Kukiz also repeated his declaration on November 4 on Radio Wnet. “(…) In case they are not available by the end of September [ustawy o sędziach pokoju], Kukiz and his colleagues suspend voting. And I suspended it, since October 1 I have not voted together with PiS.

Concrete24 already analyzed the votes in November 2022, which took place in October in the Sejm. Already then, we showed that just as PiS did not fulfill its promise to pass the law on justices of the peace, Paweł Kukiz did not fulfill the promise that for this reason he would not vote together with PiS. Now we have checked his votes from the following months of the last term of office of the Sejm: he did not fulfill his declaration.

You can check how MPs vote on the website of the Parliament in the “Votes” tab next to the profiles of MPs. From the beginning of the ninth term, MP Kukiz took part in 7,641 out of 9,266 votes – his share in votes is therefore 82.46 percent. This gives him 466th place out of 475 deputies (this number is higher than the constitutionally provided number of 460 deputies because the voting statistics also include 15 deputies whose mandates expired during the term of office).

Paweł Kukiz did not present in detail what type of votes he was supposed to act differently from PiS MPs. We took into account the votes that concerned the most important content of parliamentary work: work on bills. After all, Kukiz’s demand concerns the adoption of the Justices of the Peace Act, i.e. a change in the law. We reviewed the results of votes on motions to reject bills in the first reading, voted amendments to bills, the results of votes on all bills, the Senate’s amendments to bills and the Senate’s motions to reject bills.

When checking whether Kukiz fulfilled his declaration, we, of course, took into account the votes on bills in which he participated. We counted abstentions as votes other than those of PiS MPs. We analyzed the period from October 20, 2022 (MP Kukiz did not participate in voting at the sessions of October 6 and 7) to May 26, 2023 (Kukiz did not participate in any voting at the sessions of the Sejm on June 14-16).

During this period, there were 877 votes on bills. MP Kukiz, at least He voted the same way 465 times like PiS; in the remaining 412 cases – differently than PiS MPs.

And so: Paweł Kukiz supported, among others, from the point of view of the government of the United Right, acts on the sale of coal by local governments, on reducing energy prices, on changing the indexation of pensions and disability pensions – but also bills on the control of biofuels, on changes in the provisions on consumer rights, on paramedics, maritime areas, probation officers , changes in the regulations on the digitization of ZUS.

He voted, among others for the adoption of the Act on the State Commission for the Study of Russian Influences on the Internal Security of the Republic of Poland in 2007-2022 (the so-called Lex Tusk) and for rejecting the Senate’s veto to this Act (the opposition was against Lex Tusk). It was similar with the law on the National Medical Institute prepared by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration – Paweł Kukiz supported it together with PiS, and the opposition clubs were against or abstained from voting.

Importantly, Paweł Kukiz behaved in the same way as PiS deputies during the vote on the Senate’s veto to changes in the Electoral Code – he voted for its rejection, i.e. for accepting the changes proposed by PiS.

Unlike PiS, Paweł Kukiz voted, for example, in the case of the so-called the budget-related act for 2023 (the opposition was also against); did not support (abstained from voting) changes to the Act on the Financial Ombudsman; was against the government’s draft amendment to the Act on the medical and dental professions; like the entire opposition, he voted against changes to the Penal Code.

Currently, Paweł Kukiz declares that there is no reason not to vote with PiS, because his demands have been met. Not quite fulfilled, because in the PiS election program there is only an obligation to introduce a mixed electoral law “under which 230 deputies will be elected in single-member constituencies, and 230 in the proportional system”. PiS has now also included the appointment of justices of the peace in its program, although the presidential bill on this matter has been in the Sejm since November 2021 – and has not been passed.

The situation is similar with another proposal by Paweł Kukiz: lowering the threshold for the validity of a local referendum from 30 to 15 percent. The act was passed on March 9, but the Senate’s veto to this act has still – as of April 13 – not been considered by the Sejm, what we wrote about in Konkret24. The reason was the opposition of Sovereign Poland deputies who, like Paweł Kukiz, are running in the parliamentary elections from the list of Law and Justice.