Poland is clearly split

... between east and west.

According to statistics shown on private television station TVN:

The eight easternmost provinces or voivodships, Łódzkie (capital: Łódź), Lubelskie (Lublin), Małopolskie (Kraków),Mazowieckie (Warsaw), Podkarpackie (Rzeszów), Podlaskie (Białystok), Świętokrzyskie (Kielce) and Warmińsko-Mazurskie (Olsztyn) went to PiS.


Six westernmost voivodships - namely: Dolnośłąskie (Wrocław), Lubuskie (Zielona Góra, Gorzów Wielkopolskie), Opolskie (Opole), Pomorskie (Gdańsk), Wielkopolskie (Poznań) and Zachodniopomorskie (Szczecin) - went to PO.

Two voivodships squeezed between these regions, Kujawsko-Pomorskie (Bydgoszcz, Toruń)and Śląskie (Katowice) roughly split PO/PiS down the middle.

It's no surprise that the provinces closer to the former Soviet Union, which are also more rural as well as poorer, preferred a more protectionist, socialist, euro-skeptic party, while the voivodships closer to the German border, who have most benefited from trade with Germany and with the EU (Wrocław in particular has benefited from special economic zones, and greater business investment), are more free-market.

It doesn't look like that situation is going to change anytime soon.

Are we seeing the establishement of two power bases? A regional rivalry?