Far Right in Poland
- Thread starter Petr
- Start date
Petr
Administrator
I do not approve all of the things these guys are involved with, like Libertarian ideas for example, but right now that is a secondary concern - the main thing is to create a viable "third political force" that represents those Poles who do not want to be either sniveling pro-EU liberals, kowtowing to Brussels, or musty PiS boomercons:
March 31, 2023
editor: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK
author: GAZETA WYBORCZA
via: ONET.PL
The leaders of the Confederation party, 2022. (Source: Wikipedia)
Poland’s right-wing Confederation party has seen a surge in support among voters, particularily young voters, according to a poll funded by civic groups and carried out by the Kantor research agency.
For voters aged 18 to 39, the party polled at 27 percent. The ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) polled just 13 percent in that age group, and Confederation came second only to a hypothetical joint slate of the opposition parties (the liberal PO, Poland 2050, Left and the center-right PSL), which recorded 38 percent.
The poll was done by the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza and conducted with a larger than usual sample of 4,000 voters.
Another interesting statistic with regard to Confederation is the fact that its support among all men is 17 percent but only 5 percent among women. Its voters are certainly dominated by young men. Among the 40-59 age group, it polls at 8 percent, more than three times less than among younger voters. That support falls to just 2 percent among those over 60 years of age.
Confederation polls equally well among those with higher education (12 percent) and those who only finished high school (13 percent); however, it tends to do better among those with higher incomes. It polls 23 percent among those with above-average income. This may be a reflection of the fact that Confederation is the only significant party in Poland that has made cutting the tax burden a top priority.
The Confederation’s anti-establishment, libertarian and nationalist message is therefore appealing most to young men, the same age group that feels most threatened by gender politics and the crisis of masculinity.
Poland's right-wing Confederation party leads with young voters
Poland’s right-wing Confederation party has seen a surge in support among voters, particularily young voters, according to a poll funded by civic groups and carried out by the Kantor research agency. For voters aged 18 to 39, the party polled at 27 percent. The ruling conservative Law and...
rmx.news
Poland’s right-wing Confederation party leads with young voters
According to one poll, the right-wing Confederation received 27% support from the 18-39 age group, second only to a joint opposition slateMarch 31, 2023
editor: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK
author: GAZETA WYBORCZA
via: ONET.PL
The leaders of the Confederation party, 2022. (Source: Wikipedia)
Poland’s right-wing Confederation party has seen a surge in support among voters, particularily young voters, according to a poll funded by civic groups and carried out by the Kantor research agency.
For voters aged 18 to 39, the party polled at 27 percent. The ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) polled just 13 percent in that age group, and Confederation came second only to a hypothetical joint slate of the opposition parties (the liberal PO, Poland 2050, Left and the center-right PSL), which recorded 38 percent.
The poll was done by the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza and conducted with a larger than usual sample of 4,000 voters.
Another interesting statistic with regard to Confederation is the fact that its support among all men is 17 percent but only 5 percent among women. Its voters are certainly dominated by young men. Among the 40-59 age group, it polls at 8 percent, more than three times less than among younger voters. That support falls to just 2 percent among those over 60 years of age.
Confederation polls equally well among those with higher education (12 percent) and those who only finished high school (13 percent); however, it tends to do better among those with higher incomes. It polls 23 percent among those with above-average income. This may be a reflection of the fact that Confederation is the only significant party in Poland that has made cutting the tax burden a top priority.
The Confederation’s anti-establishment, libertarian and nationalist message is therefore appealing most to young men, the same age group that feels most threatened by gender politics and the crisis of masculinity.
Petr
Administrator
Konfederacja has now such huge support among younger Poles that I can only hope and pray it is able to step into such big shoes, and fulfill its destiny - namely, to create a powerful alternative Rightist vision for Poland that does not rely on this kind of embarrassing simping (at least by implication) for Western shitlib imperialism:
Pete, what are your thots about potential union of Pooland and Ukraine "i.e., Pookraine" as supposedly discussed between Elensky and Moronwiecki?
Petr
Administrator
A relevant additional detail here: it is the PiS party, first and foremost, that is crawling before Brussels to get welfare monies (and thus be able to indulge in social spending for its boomer electorate). Whereas the angry young men of Konfederacja are not so humble before the Brussocrats, and since they are not running a big clientelist political machine, they do not (yet) even need the EU money that much:
Last edited:
Petr
Administrator
No thoughts, really; I do not consider it a very realistic possibility. But for what it's worth, this is what Mad Man Medvedev had to say about the subject:
Petr
Administrator
Right now it seems that Konfederacja has gotten its rhythm nicely going, I only hope they can keep their momentum until the elections later this year:
notesfrompoland.com
MAY 15, 2023
By Aleks Szczerbiak
...
The radical right-wing Confederation (Konfederacja) party is a political conglomerate mainly comprising free-market economic libertarians, originally clustered around the veteran political eccentric Janusz Korwin-Mikke, and radical nationalists from the National Movement (RN) grouping.
Focusing primarily on tax cuts and reducing the size of the welfare state, in the most recent autumn 2019 parliamentary election the party secured 6.8% of the vote and won 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm, Poland’s more powerful lower legislative chamber.
In spite of the apparent tensions between its component parts, the grouping held together and in the June-July 2020 presidential election its candidate, the articulate and relatively young nationalist politician Krzysztof Bosak, finished fourth, again with 6.8%.
Confederation’s success suggested that there was a social base for its brand of politics, comprising a segment of right-leaning voters who felt that the large state support and social welfare programmes that were the key to the electoral success of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s ruling party since autumn 2015, did not address their concerns.
Confederation enjoys particularly high levels of support among younger men living in smaller towns and rural areas. For example, a March 2023 survey conducted by the Ipsos agency for the OKO.press portal found that 27% of under-40s supported the Confederation (11% across all voters), rising to 37% among younger men (11% among younger women).
These voters often felt that they had limited chances for professional and career advancement, were frustrated with the apparent “glass ceiling” of vested interests and corrupt networks that stifled opportunities for them, and did not see state support as the solution to their problems.
Last summer, Confederation saw a dip in support. While opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the only major Polish political grouping to criticise the PS government for engaging too actively in the war. Arguing that Poland’s interests were not always identical to Ukraine’s, the party was sceptical about the very generous aid provided by Warsaw to the Ukrainian government.
It also opposed granting the huge numbers of refugees who came across the border to Poland what it argued were special privileges at the expense of Polish society. But this backfired amid overwhelming public support for Ukraine and the refugees.
The same polls suggest that neither the current ruling party nor the liberal, centrist and left-wing opposition groupings will secure an outright majority after this autumn’s election, leaving Confederation in the position of kingmaker in the new parliament.
Why has this happened? Firstly, Confederation has benefited from a strong pivot to the left by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping.
PO was formed originally as a pro-free-market party but has now almost completely abandoned its earlier roots and, in an effort to outbid PiS on social spending, alarmed liberals by adopting the language of, and many of the economic policies associated with, the left.
These include recent pledges to offer interest-free mortgages for under-45s buying their first home, and state benefits of 1,500 złoties per month for mothers returning to work after maternity leave.
This has created an opening on PO’s traditional liberal flank which Confederation is trying to exploit by opposing large-scale fiscal transfers and calling for lower, simpler taxes and less state regulation.
At the same time, as a result of the recent crisis over grain imports, Confederation feels that its risky Ukrainian war narrative appears to have been at least partially vindicated.
The issue arose following the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, as a result of which the EU scrapped customs duties and quotas and allowed re-routed Ukrainian grain to pass through Poland and other east European countries on the way to African and Middle Eastern markets. However, much of this cheap grain ended up staying in Poland which, together with last year’s bumper harvest, caused farmers to make huge losses.
As a consequence, the PiS government temporarily prohibited imports of several agricultural products from Ukraine. All of this made rural voters – who will be crucial in autumn’s election, but as a demographic are wary of some of the Confederation’s free-market policies – more receptive to the party’s message that, in focusing on providing solidarity with Ukraine, Law and Justice failed to properly protect Polish farmers’ interests.
Last October, Korwin-Mikke was replaced as leader of his eponymous KORWiN party by the charismatic 35-year-old businessman Sławomir Mentzen, who also re-branded and re-named the grouping New Hope (Nowa Nadzieja). Together with Bosak, Mentzen now dominates Confederation’s media profile, communicating the party’s radical programme in a more measured and reasonable way.
Mentzen is also the most effective utiliser of the internet among Polish politicians. Ignored by traditional broadcast and print media, Confederation was forced to find its own political communication channels.
Like a number of the party’s leaders, Mentzen has, therefore, developed a strong online presence and built his profile through social media, which is also its younger core electorate’s main source of political information, where he presents himself as a self-assured and authoritative financial expert and entrepreneur.
Mentzen was, for example, one of Poland’s first party leaders to be active on TikTok, where he has 700,000 followers and his short videos receive millions of likes.
Confederation’s opponents have tried to discredit the party among potential new supporters by arguing that its leadership’s strongly socially conservative views on moral-cultural issues such as abortion diverge from those of its social base of younger Poles.
They note that, for example, in 2019 Mentzen allegedly summed up Confederation’s five-point policy programme as: “We don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the EU” (known as the “Mentzen Five”).
They also cite a website published by Mentzen shortly before the last parliamentary election containing 100 draft laws that he wanted passed, including: the creation (for those who wanted them) of “un-dissolvable” marriages that could only be terminated with the consent of a bishop, the return of the death penalty, and 10-year prison sentences for any women who had an abortion.
However, Confederation politicians argue that the “Mentzen Five” was an extract from a lengthier political marketing lecture cited out of context and simply presenting a theoretical example of what polling suggested the party’s voters wanted and not his own views.
The “100 laws” were, they say, a “pre-historic” project most of which Mentzen did not author or even remember. Moreover, although they have quite socially liberal views, Confederation voters also often see the “cancel culture” that they associate with the “woke” left as a greater threat to their personal freedom than the religious right.
The party says that it does not want to enter a coalition with either PiS or the other current opposition parties, which it attacks with equal vigour. Obviously, it cannot signal ahead of the election which of the two blocs it would be prepared to govern with because this would undermine the party’s appeal with its core anti-establishment electorate.
For the same reason, even after the election it will be difficult for the party to maintain its radical insurgent “anti-system” image if it ends up making the kind of compromises and deals that are required to participate in a governing coalition.
Monthly polling averages for Poland’s main political groups (via ewybory.eu)
On the other hand, Confederation’s leaders would prefer to have a real influence on government policy than simply being a repository of protest votes, perpetually in opposition. Most commentators expect the party to come to some kind of accommodation with PiS, and suggest that its leaders are pragmatic and biddable so would be tempted to join a government if they could secure influence over ministries that are key to their programmatic priorities.
However, it is difficult to envisage a party for whom reducing state intervention is a core element of its appeal being given a significant say on economic matters in a government led by PiS, which owes much of its recent political success to large social welfare programmes.
Moreover, although Confederation’s nationalist wing is nominally ideologically closer to the current ruling party, many of its leaders remember how their previous grouping, the now-defunct League of Polish Families (LPR), was marginalised and then eliminated when it was PiS’s junior coalition partner in the 2005-7 parliament.
Indeed, Confederation’s own long-term strategic goal is to replace PiS as the dominant party on the Polish right. It is counting on a major shake-up after PiS’s 73-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński stands down, most likely during the next parliament.
Although he does not hold any formal government positions, Kaczyński has provided a crucial source of cohesion within the governing camp, but Confederation believes that his previously unquestioned authority and influence are steadily weakening. In that sense, it might be more advantageous for the party to wait out another term in opposition, particularly given that its leaders are still relatively young.
A more attractive scenario for the party may, therefore, be for it to prop up a minority government through an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition. But PiS may also try and persuade Confederation deputies (and those from other parties) to defect so that it can obtain the votes that it needs to secure a parliamentary majority without such a deal.
The larger Confederation’s parliamentary caucus, the more likely it is that its deputies will have weak ideological underpinnings and peel away, especially if PiS falls just a few seats short of a majority.
In fact, Confederation’s voter base is quite ideologically diverse, exemplified by the fact that Bosak’s voters in the 2020 presidential election divided evenly between the PiS and Civic Platform candidates in the second round run-off.
Will the radical right Confederation emerge as kingmaker after this year’s Polish election?
With polls evenly balanced, both the ruling party and opposition may need far-right support if they hope to govern after this year's elections.
notesfrompoland.com
Will the radical right Confederation emerge as kingmaker after this year’s Polish election?
MAY 15, 2023
By Aleks Szczerbiak
...
The radical right-wing Confederation (Konfederacja) party is a political conglomerate mainly comprising free-market economic libertarians, originally clustered around the veteran political eccentric Janusz Korwin-Mikke, and radical nationalists from the National Movement (RN) grouping.
Focusing primarily on tax cuts and reducing the size of the welfare state, in the most recent autumn 2019 parliamentary election the party secured 6.8% of the vote and won 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm, Poland’s more powerful lower legislative chamber.
In spite of the apparent tensions between its component parts, the grouping held together and in the June-July 2020 presidential election its candidate, the articulate and relatively young nationalist politician Krzysztof Bosak, finished fourth, again with 6.8%.
Confederation’s success suggested that there was a social base for its brand of politics, comprising a segment of right-leaning voters who felt that the large state support and social welfare programmes that were the key to the electoral success of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s ruling party since autumn 2015, did not address their concerns.
Confederation enjoys particularly high levels of support among younger men living in smaller towns and rural areas. For example, a March 2023 survey conducted by the Ipsos agency for the OKO.press portal found that 27% of under-40s supported the Confederation (11% across all voters), rising to 37% among younger men (11% among younger women).
These voters often felt that they had limited chances for professional and career advancement, were frustrated with the apparent “glass ceiling” of vested interests and corrupt networks that stifled opportunities for them, and did not see state support as the solution to their problems.
Last summer, Confederation saw a dip in support. While opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the only major Polish political grouping to criticise the PS government for engaging too actively in the war. Arguing that Poland’s interests were not always identical to Ukraine’s, the party was sceptical about the very generous aid provided by Warsaw to the Ukrainian government.
It also opposed granting the huge numbers of refugees who came across the border to Poland what it argued were special privileges at the expense of Polish society. But this backfired amid overwhelming public support for Ukraine and the refugees.
Confederation bounces back
However, recent polls have shown an increase in support for Confederation. According to the “Pooling the Poles” micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys, the party is averaging 10%, which translates into 41 seats.The same polls suggest that neither the current ruling party nor the liberal, centrist and left-wing opposition groupings will secure an outright majority after this autumn’s election, leaving Confederation in the position of kingmaker in the new parliament.
Why has this happened? Firstly, Confederation has benefited from a strong pivot to the left by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping.
PO was formed originally as a pro-free-market party but has now almost completely abandoned its earlier roots and, in an effort to outbid PiS on social spending, alarmed liberals by adopting the language of, and many of the economic policies associated with, the left.
These include recent pledges to offer interest-free mortgages for under-45s buying their first home, and state benefits of 1,500 złoties per month for mothers returning to work after maternity leave.
This has created an opening on PO’s traditional liberal flank which Confederation is trying to exploit by opposing large-scale fiscal transfers and calling for lower, simpler taxes and less state regulation.
At the same time, as a result of the recent crisis over grain imports, Confederation feels that its risky Ukrainian war narrative appears to have been at least partially vindicated.
The issue arose following the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, as a result of which the EU scrapped customs duties and quotas and allowed re-routed Ukrainian grain to pass through Poland and other east European countries on the way to African and Middle Eastern markets. However, much of this cheap grain ended up staying in Poland which, together with last year’s bumper harvest, caused farmers to make huge losses.
As a consequence, the PiS government temporarily prohibited imports of several agricultural products from Ukraine. All of this made rural voters – who will be crucial in autumn’s election, but as a demographic are wary of some of the Confederation’s free-market policies – more receptive to the party’s message that, in focusing on providing solidarity with Ukraine, Law and Justice failed to properly protect Polish farmers’ interests.
Out of step with its supporters?
Confederation has also professionalised its image by consciously sidelining its most radical leaders, such as Korwin-Mikke and the highly controversial political maverick Grzegorz Braun, both of whom are associated with pro-Russian rhetoric and other extreme positions.Last October, Korwin-Mikke was replaced as leader of his eponymous KORWiN party by the charismatic 35-year-old businessman Sławomir Mentzen, who also re-branded and re-named the grouping New Hope (Nowa Nadzieja). Together with Bosak, Mentzen now dominates Confederation’s media profile, communicating the party’s radical programme in a more measured and reasonable way.
Mentzen is also the most effective utiliser of the internet among Polish politicians. Ignored by traditional broadcast and print media, Confederation was forced to find its own political communication channels.
Like a number of the party’s leaders, Mentzen has, therefore, developed a strong online presence and built his profile through social media, which is also its younger core electorate’s main source of political information, where he presents himself as a self-assured and authoritative financial expert and entrepreneur.
Mentzen was, for example, one of Poland’s first party leaders to be active on TikTok, where he has 700,000 followers and his short videos receive millions of likes.
Confederation’s opponents have tried to discredit the party among potential new supporters by arguing that its leadership’s strongly socially conservative views on moral-cultural issues such as abortion diverge from those of its social base of younger Poles.
They note that, for example, in 2019 Mentzen allegedly summed up Confederation’s five-point policy programme as: “We don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the EU” (known as the “Mentzen Five”).
They also cite a website published by Mentzen shortly before the last parliamentary election containing 100 draft laws that he wanted passed, including: the creation (for those who wanted them) of “un-dissolvable” marriages that could only be terminated with the consent of a bishop, the return of the death penalty, and 10-year prison sentences for any women who had an abortion.
However, Confederation politicians argue that the “Mentzen Five” was an extract from a lengthier political marketing lecture cited out of context and simply presenting a theoretical example of what polling suggested the party’s voters wanted and not his own views.
The “100 laws” were, they say, a “pre-historic” project most of which Mentzen did not author or even remember. Moreover, although they have quite socially liberal views, Confederation voters also often see the “cancel culture” that they associate with the “woke” left as a greater threat to their personal freedom than the religious right.
Post-election dilemmas
So what will happen if Confederation ends up holding the balance of power in the next parliament?The party says that it does not want to enter a coalition with either PiS or the other current opposition parties, which it attacks with equal vigour. Obviously, it cannot signal ahead of the election which of the two blocs it would be prepared to govern with because this would undermine the party’s appeal with its core anti-establishment electorate.
For the same reason, even after the election it will be difficult for the party to maintain its radical insurgent “anti-system” image if it ends up making the kind of compromises and deals that are required to participate in a governing coalition.
Monthly polling averages for Poland’s main political groups (via ewybory.eu)
On the other hand, Confederation’s leaders would prefer to have a real influence on government policy than simply being a repository of protest votes, perpetually in opposition. Most commentators expect the party to come to some kind of accommodation with PiS, and suggest that its leaders are pragmatic and biddable so would be tempted to join a government if they could secure influence over ministries that are key to their programmatic priorities.
However, it is difficult to envisage a party for whom reducing state intervention is a core element of its appeal being given a significant say on economic matters in a government led by PiS, which owes much of its recent political success to large social welfare programmes.
Moreover, although Confederation’s nationalist wing is nominally ideologically closer to the current ruling party, many of its leaders remember how their previous grouping, the now-defunct League of Polish Families (LPR), was marginalised and then eliminated when it was PiS’s junior coalition partner in the 2005-7 parliament.
Indeed, Confederation’s own long-term strategic goal is to replace PiS as the dominant party on the Polish right. It is counting on a major shake-up after PiS’s 73-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński stands down, most likely during the next parliament.
Although he does not hold any formal government positions, Kaczyński has provided a crucial source of cohesion within the governing camp, but Confederation believes that his previously unquestioned authority and influence are steadily weakening. In that sense, it might be more advantageous for the party to wait out another term in opposition, particularly given that its leaders are still relatively young.
A more attractive scenario for the party may, therefore, be for it to prop up a minority government through an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition. But PiS may also try and persuade Confederation deputies (and those from other parties) to defect so that it can obtain the votes that it needs to secure a parliamentary majority without such a deal.
The larger Confederation’s parliamentary caucus, the more likely it is that its deputies will have weak ideological underpinnings and peel away, especially if PiS falls just a few seats short of a majority.
In fact, Confederation’s voter base is quite ideologically diverse, exemplified by the fact that Bosak’s voters in the 2020 presidential election divided evenly between the PiS and Civic Platform candidates in the second round run-off.
Petr
Administrator
Those Eastern European nationalists who are used as dumb muscle to fight Russia will be attacked in their turn once they have outlived their usefulness:
www.nytimes.com
Poland Rejects E.U. Ruling, Restarting a European Feud
Poland’s justice minister called the E.U. court of justice “corrupt,” after it ruled a judicial overhaul was illegal. He vowed not to comply, though that could cost Poland billions.
Petr
Administrator
Poland’s Confederation party has Facebook account restored and is surging in the polls
The right-wing Confederation party has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls and has now succeeded in having its Facebook account restored, although it is still being sidelined by much of Poland’s mainstream media. The Confederation party’s attorney, Michał Wawer, told Onet.pl news outlet that a...
rmx.news
Poland’s Confederation party has Facebook account restored and is surging in the polls
The party’s Facebook account was blocked due to its vaccine and lockdown skepticism during the coronavirus pandemic
June 09, 2023
editor: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK
author: ONET.PL
The right-wing Confederation party has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls and has now succeeded in having its Facebook account restored, although it is still being sidelined by much of Poland’s mainstream media.
The Confederation party’s attorney, Michał Wawer, told Onet.pl news outlet that a year ago a Polish court had ordered Facebook to lift its ban on the Confederation’s account pending the resolution of a legal dispute. However, it was very difficult to get Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to actually implement the court’s decision.
At Wednesday’s meeting with Meta, the party finally learned that its profile would be unblocked. The original decision to suspend the Confederation party’s account was taken after it was accused of violating rules with regard to COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech. Confederation as a party opposed lockdowns and the pressure to get vaccinated.
The party sued Facebook demanding an apology and financial compensation. According to the party, the decision to unblock its account means that honest competition between political parties has been restored, as access to social media is critical in the modern age for parties to be able to communicate with voters.
Poland’s digital affairs minister, Janusz Cieszyński, expressed satisfaction at the decision and stated that “putting pressure on (the company) made sense,” claiming that the Polish government had successfully intervened in the dispute.
Confederation, however, is skeptical whether such an intervention actually took place. They pointed to the fact that Poland’s public broadcaster, TVP, known to be controlled by the ruling conservatives, has excluded Confederation for years.
Meanwhile, Poland’s alternative party of the right has been doing well in recent opinion polls.
According to the latest survey by IBRiS pollster taken after the liberal opposition’s mass march and rally on June 4, the party has more than 12 percent of the vote. Since neither the liberal opposition nor the ruling conservatives have enough support to have a majority in the future parliament, this would mean that Confederation would hold the balance of power after this autumn’s general election.
Petr
Administrator
‘Why should Poland pay for the EU's mistakes?’ – Polish conservatives run video campaign against new mandatory migrant quotas
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki once again expressed his opposition to the obligatory relocation of migrants enforced by the European Union’s new Pact for Migration and Asylum, this time with a video. “The Law and Justice government says STOP to the mandatory relocation of illegal...
rmx.news
‘Why should Poland pay for the EU’s mistakes?’ – Polish conservatives run video campaign against new mandatory migrant quotas
Under new EU rules set to be passed, countries like Poland and Hungary will be forced to take in migrants or pay a €20,000 fine per migrant they reject
June 15, 2023
editor: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK
author: DORZECZY.PL
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki once again expressed his opposition to the obligatory relocation of migrants enforced by the European Union’s new Pact for Migration and Asylum, this time with a video.
“The Law and Justice government says STOP to the mandatory relocation of illegal immigrants,” posted Morawiecki, as he shared the PiS election video clip addressing the issue of migrant relocation on Twitter.
“When the criminal regime of Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 and killed innocent civilians, Poles and other countries rushed to help our neighbors. We assisted up to 4 million people without any guidelines from the European Union, but out of heartfelt need and a sense of human solidarity,” the video highlights.
“The EU allocated only €200 million for this purpose, which is €50 per person,” the narrator adds. “Yet now, the same Union is attempting to force Poland into accepting immigrants from other continents or foot the bill for their upkeep – €22,000 per person annually,” the video continues.
“But why should we be held accountable for the errors committed by wealthy European Union countries? Solidarity cannot function unilaterally. We will never agree to such terms. We refuse to compromise the safety of Poles due to the egregious mistakes made by a handful of European capitals,” the narrator explains.
Polish authorities have long been warning about the disastrous consequences of the European Union’s immigration policy. The new clip picks up on the same theme, with the narrator stating: “We are committed to protecting our country’s interests and aspire to build genuine solidarity in Europe, rather than coercive solidarity.”
Last week, EU interior ministers reached a migration deal described as “historic” by officials that would see EU states pay €20,000 for each migrant they refuse to host. Poland has rejected the deal and demands the issue be considered by the full European Council summit, where decisions have to be taken unanimously.
Petr
Administrator
New kingmaker: Far-right shadow looms larger over Poland’s elections
Support for far-right Confederation party has spiked ahead of parliamentary elections slated for this fall - Anadolu Ajansı
www.aa.com.tr
New kingmaker: Far-right shadow looms larger over Poland’s elections
Support for far-right Confederation party has spiked ahead of parliamentary elections slated for this fall
Jo Harper
16.06.2023 - Update : 16.06.2023
16.06.2023 - Update : 16.06.2023
WARSAW
Polish politics could have a new kingmaker by the end of this year: the far-right Konfederacja, or Confederation, party.
With elections due in the fall, polls show Confederation could double its share of seats in parliament.
A recent survey by pollster Estimator gave the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) 35.9%, the main opposition group Civic Coalition (KO) 29.6%, and 13.9% for Confederation.
The Left alliance, and another group of the Polish People’s Party and Polska 2050, are stuck on the margins between 7% to 9%.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke, co-founder of Confederation and a former lawmaker in the European Parliament, has not ruled out coalition talks with other forces, making the party’s presence in a future government all the more likely.
Asked if this was a cause for worry, Aleks Szczerbiak, a political scientist at the University of Sussex, said: “Yes, for the liberal-left consensus, which has been critical of PiS since it came to power in 2015.”
He said the Confederation is “more pragmatic than people believe.”
“I can’t see them maintaining this extremism if inside the government. They will also not be calling the shots as a junior partner,” he said.
For all its gains, Confederation still faces the challenge of wider acceptance in Poland.
A poll commissioned by a Polish media group shows more than 61% of citizens do not want the ruling camp to bring the far-right into government, with just over 22% viewing such a coalition favorably.
An odd bag
So what is Confederation, what does it want, and who would want to create a coalition with it?
Confederation is mainly made up of economic libertarians close to Korwin-Mikke, along with radical nationalists from the National Movement (RN) group.
“It is a party that is anarcho-libertarian. On economic issues, they basically want the state to completely leave the economy,” Artur Lipinski, professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, told Anadolu.
“But the party is pretty dangerous because they combine this with ultra-nationalism and ultra-Catholicism.”
In the last elections in 2019, Confederation secured 6.8% of the vote and 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament.
Krzysztof Bosak, the party’s candidate for president who finished with just under 7% in 2020, was replaced last year by Slawomir Mentzen, a more media-savvy and less overtly extreme figure.
Mentzen, though, is not a centrist by any means. He wants a return of the death penalty, 10-year prison sentences for women who have abortions, and “un-dissolvable” marriages that can only be terminated by the church.
In 2019, he presented Confederation’s five main policy points as: “We don’t want Jews, gays, abortion, taxes, and the EU.”
Confederation has also questioned Poland’s “unconditional support” for Ukraine and its transatlantic ties.
This has created rifts within the party, as evidenced by the case of Artur Dziambor, a lawmaker leading The Libertarians (Wolnosciowcy) group, who was expelled for claiming that Confederation was too soft on Russia.
“In terms of their attitudes to the war in Ukraine, they are not as supportive as PiS. They feel that Polish national interest needs to be asserted even more,” Szczerbiak told Anadolu in a video interview.
Confederation is also seeking support from Polish farmers, who have traditionally backed the PiS, but are upset about competition from cheap Ukrainian grain.
‘Radicalization of the mainstream’
The glue that holds together the party’s radical nationalism and extreme free market liberalism is Euroscepticism.
This is a position close to the ruling coalition, which has been at odds with Brussels over alleged democratic backsliding for several years.
“PiS, for all its skepticism of the EU, still believes Poland should remain a member,” said Szczerbiak.
“Confederation is not going to come out openly in favor of ‘Polexit’ because it knows that would be electoral suicide, but it will be more hardline in its attitudes than even PiS.”
Szczerbiak believes a workable government between a statist party and one that believes in cutting state intervention to the bone would be difficult to manage.
“Most people tend to assume Confederation will go in with PiS, but I don’t think we should be so certain of this. Partly because its long-term strategic objective is to move aside the PiS,” he said.
This may mean a minority PiS government propped up by an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition, he added.
He said Confederation aims to replace PiS as the main party on the right, particularly after its 73-year-old leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski stands down.
That could happen most likely during the next parliament and would increase the PiS’ chances of achieving its objective, he added.
PiS has traditionally deployed the tactic of out-flanking the far-right in its rhetoric, against the LGBTQI+ and migrants, for example.
“I would say this is about radicalization of the mainstream. They [PiS] will, in terms of the cultural and moral agenda, simply radicalize themselves and be competing with Confederation, or simply position themselves as the better or more effective right-wing,” said Lipinski.
Petr
Administrator
If these numbers are correct, this is one of the biggest "generation gaps" I have ever seen in politics. It is as if the PiS were entirely dependent on middle-aged and elderly people for its power position.
But before Konfederacja can pop the champagne corks, it must still prove that it is able to bring out this supposed huge youth support at the ballots:
But before Konfederacja can pop the champagne corks, it must still prove that it is able to bring out this supposed huge youth support at the ballots: