Victory for Obama. Now what?
The 47-year-old Obama took 52 percent of the popular vote against 46 percent for his rival, getting a clear majority of support from women voters, African-American and Latino voters, first-time voters and under-30 voters.
"I'm happy that a man who talked of change won, but I would like to know what kind of changes he wants to make," former Polish President Lech Wałęsa told TVN24. He claimed that the US had made a number of missteps recently and that there was a need for new solutions. "I would like to hear from this president, what he wants to change," he added.
Financial stability?
Wałęsa isn't the only one. As the financial crisis unfolds, analysts are keeping a close eye on Obama's plans to pull the US back from the brink of economic disaster. The US Congress has already enacted a $700 (zł.1,939) billion bailout plan; however, Obama has proposed an additional aid package, worth around $175 (zł.484.5) billion, which would include funding for car manufacturers and tax credits for employers.
"The victory, at this time, can be viewed as positive [for Poland] because local financial markets are obviously connected to the trends of global financial markets," Piotr Kalisz, senior economist at Citi Handlowy told WBJ. "This is also positive for Polish assets because of expectations that a fiscal package from the new president could help dissolve some problems, maybe not all of them, but would at least accelerate the aid for the market and financial system."
The Polish złoty and the stock exchange slid last week, but Kalisz didn't see cause for worry. "This is a correction, not a reaction to the outcome of the election," he said. Kalisz expects the złoty to stabilize and maybe even appreciate.
Missile shield worries
Obama has not only vowed to tackle the US financial crisis, but has also promised to restore US leadership in the world by working closely with its allies. "Barack Obama has said that we should stand by our allies in Central Europe and support these young democracies. I think he meant Poland as well. The question is how he's going to do this," Bartosz Wiśniewski, political analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, told WBJ.
Poland is one of the US' closest allies, having committed troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and agreed to host the interceptor-rocket component of a US missile defense shield.
Polish-US relations depend on the future of the missile defense shield project, under which Poland agreed to station 10 missiles, as well as the possibility of any further concessions for the Polish side, according to Wiśniewski. However, there are too many variables at the moment and the future of the project is in question. Obama has also expressed concern about the project, wanting to test the system to see if it works.
Just hours after Obama's election, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the US plan had forced his country to deploy its own missiles to the Kaliningrad Oblast. Many political analysts see this as Russia's first test of Obama.
Meanwhile, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski expressed hope that the Obama administration would go ahead with the anti-missile system and respect the Polish-American deal.
