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CITIZENS WILL BE WATCHING NEW GOVERNMENT CLOSELY
The parliamentary elections on Oct. 15 most likely brought a change in Poland’s ruling team; after eight years in power, Law and Justice (PiS) may have received the most votes, but it did not win the parliamentary majority, which is now held by three opposition parties. What were the reasons behind this voter turnaround?
The main reason was that the ruling party lost what had previously been its strength, namely its connection to what people feel and what is important to them. Since 2015 [when PiS came into power], PiS has presented itself as a party that cares about the weak and vulnerable, but in recent months it started sending signals of contempt to the people. This has affected a very large part of Polish society. If PiS politicians are now saying that since the opposition has won, it must remember that PiS supporters are a significant part of society, this can be reversed: PiS should have remembered that there is an important part of society that cannot be addressed with contempt. It should not have constantly attacked and insulted its political opponents, [Civic Platform (PO) leader] Donald Tusk first and foremost and should not have consistently ignored various signals about its own scandals. In short: PiS ceased to be a party having very good contacts with the public. It was lulled to sleep by power. From this came further sins: violations of the rule of law, attacks on democratic institutions.
PiS also misunderstood society, assuming that it was more conservative than it really was. Meanwhile, a modernization trend has been growing in Poland for many years, with society becoming more secular, more educated, more pro-European and, finally, more affluent. All this has caused PiS to drift further and further away from the people. This contempt coming from the world of politics and this distancing of politicians from society are, in my opin- ion, the main reasons for the electoral defeat of the party that has been in power for eight years.
Was this also the reason for such an unbelievable, 74-percent voter turnout, precedential in Poland since the political breakthrough of 1989?
Yes, of course. What happened was a rare concurrence in Polish society between what was happening in politics and what was important in the individual lives of people, i.e. voters. This was particularly evident in the group of young people, where the turnout increased dramatically. The same is true for women, which can primarily be linked to the extremely repressive policy on abortion imposed by the authorities. Abortion in Poland has been criminalized, women have seen politics, previously somewhat abstract, invade their private lives. This was already evident in the fall of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Polish women took to the streets during the Women’s Strike triggered by the tightening of the abortion law [under the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling, irreversible damage to the fetus ceased to be a legal premise for abortion]. The authorities treated the protesters by sending police after them and mocking them in the pro-government media. Women saw that PiS not only promises [the flagship family benefit] 500+, but also goes at them with police batons when they protest in defense of rights that are obvious to most. This had easy-to-predict consequences: Jarosław Kaczyński [leader of the United Right] first gained from the connection between politics and everyday life, then suddenly began to lose. The long-term effect was precise- ly the unusually large participation of women, especially younger ones, in the Oct. 15 elections.
According to some, the biggest winner on Oct. 15 was the Third Way, the electoral coalition of the opposition agrarian Polish Peoples’ Party (PSL) and political newcomer Poland 2050, created just this spring; what is your opinion on this?
The Third Way indeed performed much better than it looked at the beginning of its political existence. From the beginning of the election campaign, it distinguished itself by consistent action, a clear concept and good organization, even though it had very little time to create efficient structures to run the campaign. It was merit-based and focused on specifics. The mechanism of the political “third way” worked in favor of the grouping: it was voted for by those who were fed up with the conflict between the two political mainstreams, PiS and the Civic Coalition (KO). Thus, the attraction of novelty worked. Finally, a certain portion of voters may have voted for the Third Way at the last minute for “tactical” reasons. The pro-government media speculated that a situation in which the Third Way would not exceed the 8-percent electoral threshold applicable to the coalition and would not enter parliament, would be a blow to the entire democratic opposition and would enable PiS to continue its rule. The politicians of the Third Way themselves bandied about the slogan “Either the Third Way or a third term for PiS!” Therefore, I think that a large part of the “last minute” votes in fact went to the grouping of Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Szymon Hołownia.
What was the significance in the fight for votes of events like the protest marches organized in Warsaw by the KO: the June 4 March attended by about half a million people, and the Million Hearts March on Oct. 1, which gathered almost a million participants? And what about the only leaders’ debate in the campaign, organized by the extremely biased public TVP?
Let me start with the pseudo-debate. Through its architecture, it belittled the biggest players on the political scene, while helping the smaller ones. Everyone had the same amount of time to speak, and from the beginning it was clear that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Donald Tusk were the worst off. On the other hand, [Poland 2050 leader] Hołownia had an excellent appearance, refraining from his characteristic rhetorical fireworks and answering questions in a matter-of-fact manner, keeping to the allotted time. The representatives of the Left and the Confederation also did not do badly.
As for the marches, their role cannot be overestimated; admittedly, it was not very evident in the political support polls after the two protests, but they undoubtedly gave a powerful mobilization boost to the electorate. The first march on June 4 was particularly surprising. Donald Tusk and the other organizers showed how the emotion of patriotism, which until then had been more of a PiS political weapon, could be harnessed effectively. Waves of whiteand-red flags, good slogans, all this had previously been used successfully by those in power, while the PO operated under the label of the [mundane] “hot water in the faucet” and was accused of a lack of clarity by its political rivals. The June 4 March showed that it was capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Poles not only to take to the streets, but also to go further; Tusk appealed during the Million Hearts March for each participant to go further and encourage their relatives or friends: “Go to the polls!”
The result was a voter turnout unseen in Polish history. The KO did its best to attract the undecided, was open to the people, and this paid off.
The leaders of all the democratic parties did not attack one another in the process, they referred to each other with respect. And PiS closed itself off, brutalized the campaign, attacked everyone, accusing them of lacking patriotism, and tried to exclude its opponents from the national community. It did not solicit those who had not gone to the polls before; on the contrary, it probably would have preferred them to stay at home, and only to see representatives of the core electorates of the various groups at the ballot box. This is exactly how it lost.
PiS continues to argue that it will manage to draw one of parliamentary groups or part of it to its side, which will give PiS the coveted 231 votes in the Sejm [lower house]; do you think this is realistic, or is a government formed by the recent opposition a foregone conclusion?
In my opinion, the continuation of the United Right government is not possible. While it is true that buying parliamentary votes for positions in state-owned companies, deputy minister positions or other benefits was a com- mon practice of PiS in the last years of its rule, today the Poles would see winkling anyone out from the ranks of the democratic opposition as the ultimate embarrassment. Those who voted for the KO, the Third Way or the Left will be keeping a watchful eye on the people they elected. This will apply not only to the time of the current interregnum, but also to at least the first few months, if not longer, of the new coalition government of the democratic opposition. Any political move that could threaten this government, no matter who in the new coalition might make such a move, will be stigmatized mercilessly by public opinion. All the public energy that was invested by more than 70 percent of Poles able to vote on Oct. 15 will not disappear overnight; they will closely watch the doings of those they decided to trust.
All the newly elected deputies forming the democratic majority in the parliament will feel a crowd of citizens breathing down their necks. This charge of emotion we face today should effectively muffle all the differences of opinion and tactics that divide the KO, the Third Way and the Left today.
But what about the United Right? Won’t the move to the opposition cause an internal crisis?
For many months, the Right has been united in name only. Now its decomposition may accelerate. The fundamental problem PiS has is the question of succession, of what will happen when Jarosław Kaczyński leaves the political scene. The behavior of junior coalitionist Sovereign Poland and its leader, current Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, is a mystery. I also think that the process of this decomposition may also be influenced by possible desertions of MPs fleeing a ship they may believe to be sinking. The crucial question is what will happen to PiS itself, which is also not internally unified, where factions and interest groups are emerging. Perhaps, then, the United Right will not survive the test of losing the elections. Kaczyński is saying today that it is necessary to focus on the next elections – local and presidential, but it is unclear whether this message from the leader will be strong enough.
Another loser in the elections was the radical-nationalist Confederation, which scored a result of 15-17 percent in polls just a few weeks before the vote but ended up at a meager 7 percent; does this formation still have a political future?
The Confederation received a very clear signal from the public that the momentary charm it presented to voters was no substitute for a program. It became clear that the completely nonsensical recipes for economic policy did not convince anyone serious, and the xenophobic rhetoric, especially anti-EU rhetoric, also failed completely. This also happened for the reason I mentioned earlier: the slow but serious structural transformation of Polish society toward modernization.
