Duckman, so-called "central" politicians in Poland (people which I call "centrals" for simplification) are NOT REALLY between left and right wing. They are liberals, so they can`t be easily classified that way. They can be called "conservative liberals": economically they are liberals, but culturally they are moderate conservatives.Adamo by your posts I think the politics at poland are probaly same than at Czech. That's because here centarls are NOT liberals, some even call us conservative.
Thus, sometimes you can call them right-wings, sometimes left-wings. That`s why people sometimes call it The Center, because sometimes they have leftists - sometimes conservative - sometimes moderate - and sometimes liberal thoughts.
There are three political movements in western democracy: left wing, right wing and liberals (sometimes called centre).
I vote liberals.
Duckman, here are my thoughts about the political movements in Europe:
The problem with the left wing is that they don`t believe in a free economy and market so much as liberals do. Besides, some of them would like to change the society in a "swedish way", which I wouldn`t like to be. Some of them not also want to separate the state and religion (which I support), but also actively wants to construct the society among their own wievs (for example some leftists feminists in Scandinavia says that they want to destroy the old family concept because it doesn`t fit to the modern times).
I don`t think everything they say is wrong. For example they forced a prohibition of beating children, they gave a vote rights for womens, or deleted law rules that prohibited homosexual relations (private life is not a business of a state). That`s good, but that`s enough. I think sometimes they`re going too far; I don`t want the whole Europe to look like now Sweden does.
The problem with right wing politicians is that most of them are idiots, blockheads and usually populists. Just take a look at nationalists from British National Party, they can`t even speak english properly. Or National Front in France - most of so-called "nationalists" are people who doesn`t have idea about a modern world and science. They don`t have an idea about economy. People like them are simply inefficient. They doesn`t believe in free market too, they would like to nationalize most of the economy! They are just angry for the world that it changes, and for the reality that it doesn`t fit into their views. I wouldn`t give them my vote, just like I woudn`t give my money to the bank administrated by ignorants.
Luckily, these radical movements I just described are minorities even in their own parties. Most of the politicians has really moderate thoughts, even if they have radical opinions for the public. That`s why I vote liberals. They`re moderate, they propose realistic solutions, they`re cultural, educated, moderate and predictable people. Moderately conservative liberals. As PO in Poland and FDP in Germany.
According to the Wikipedia, the finnish equivalent of leftists would be Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, right wing would be Kansallinen Kokoomus and (moderate) liberals would be Suomen Keskusta (they call themselves "Center Party"). If I was finnish, I would vote the Center Party.
Jan wrote:
Jan, PO is considered as a right-wing party, but I would call it moderate conservative liberals. A phrase "right-wing" associates to me with chauvinismin Poland the political scene is nowadays rather deformed in this sense. In last elections (2007), two major right-wing parties got almost 3/4 of votes (conservative Prawo i Sprawiedliwość 32 % and rather liberal Platforma Obywatelska 42 %). The left-wing part of the spectrum is negligible.