There is tension in Warsaw ahead of the Polish parliamentary elections, which are only a few days away. At every corner, a politician’s poster peeks out, and the election buses of each party drive along the roads. “The polls predict an even fight and nobody knows how the elections will turn out. You can tell how nervous people are,” says journalist Jakub Bodziony from the political weekly Kultura Liberalna.
From a special correspondent – Warsaw is playing for everything in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. In the last presidential race in 2020, local mayor Rafal Trzaskowski from the opposition Civic Platform lost by only one percent to the current head of state, Andrzej Duda, candidate for the ruling Law and Justice party.
Now the capital perceives that the opposition has a chance again. In the metropolis, they are clear: the end of the rule of Law and Justice. And Warsawites hope they are not alone.
“I don’t know who I will vote for yet, but I know who I won’t vote for,” says the young theater teacher Maja. “I will not vote for Law and Justice.” In the capital, on the pedestrian streets, politicians peek out at every corner, smiling condescendingly from posters and promising a better future. But they all look almost the same.
The opposition originally wanted to offer voters a unified list of all united parties in order to gain a better position against Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s party, which has been in power for eight years. Similar to what the Czech political parties did before the last parliamentary elections. They united to defeat Andrej Babiš’s ANO movement.
In the end, however, the Polish opposition did not agree. Moreover, there were fears that it might demobilize some voters. Opponents of the current government do not want to vote for ex-prime minister Donald Tusk, who is leading the candidate of the Civic Coalition – an association of smaller parties around the main opposition Civic Platform. Voters of the Left or the Third Way coalition, for example, could put his name off the ballot because they were not satisfied with the way Tusk had led the country in the past.
Women fear for the future
However, the opposition does not have to worry about Warsaw, like most other big cities. Victory here is almost certain. Younger, more educated and wealthier people who live here more often want change. In the last parliamentary elections in 2019, almost half of the inhabitants of Warsaw voted for the opposition Civic Coalition.
“I think every woman in Poland has a problem with the Law and Justice party. They want to take away our rights,” describes Maja, who commutes to the capital every day for work. The woman, dazzled by the afternoon sun and the wind blowing her hair in her face, speaks very firmly.
“I’m a young woman and I’m worried about my future, for example if I’m expecting children. Abortion is almost illegal here now,” she explains her position. He alludes to the fact that Law and Justice tightened the rules on abortion during his administration.
Polka Maja | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
Even most of her friends refuse to vote for the current government, even if some of them don’t want to talk about it. Law and justice are mainly chosen by older people in smaller towns and villages. Intergenerational conflicts often arise in this way, which is also Maja’s case. Although her parents plan to support one of the opposition parties, she prefers not to discuss politics with her grandparents.
“My grandmother doesn’t understand my point of view, but I can’t stop her from voting,” he adds. The majority of Poles feel the same way, a recent one shows survey of IBRiS. Only a quarter want to convince their loved ones to vote for a specific party.
Warsaw as an exception
A week ago, the city of almost two million mobilized for an anti-government demonstration organized by the Civic Coalition. According to the organizers, a million people came to the event, pro-government media wrote about only sixty thousand.
Oliwia also plans to vote for the Civic Coalition, which respects Tusk for his political experience at the Polish and European level. “He was the president of the European Council and almost all the member states of the European Union re-elected him to this position,” describes the young Polish woman enthusiastically. Oliwia also goes to Warsaw several times a week for work from a nearby town. But even she prefers not to talk about politics at home anymore, because she doesn’t want to argue with her grandparents.
She herself is well aware that this is mainly a big city bubble, Law and Justice still leads in national polls. According to a Kantar survey from the beginning of October, the party would get around 34 percent, with the Civic Coalition trailing in second place with less than 30 percent.
The question remains whether Law and Justice will have someone to form a government with. Most of the parties do not want to enter into a coalition with them, so the current government has high hopes for the right-wing party of the Confederation. She surprised the polls at the beginning of the election campaign, but since then she has been gradually losing voters.
Voices of young men
The Confederation has the greatest support among young men, such as Bartek. “I’m quite conservative and I go to church every weekend, I brought that with me from home,” explains Bartek, who came to Warsaw to study.
At the same time, he wants the economic changes that the libertarian party promises him. “I don’t like the taxes people pay in the Western world,” adds the man with the light, short hair.
Polish journalist Jakub Bodziony explains that the party’s voters are mainly young unmarried men who work in IT, earn a lot of money, and thus do not need the welfare state, which gives out generously from taxes.
In reality, however, it is a radical party that only hides behind economic reforms. “They are quite xenophobic and, as the only party in Poland, anti-Ukrainian,” adds the political journalist.
Jakub Bodziony. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
Bartek agrees that Russia is a common enemy of Poland and Ukraine, but at the same time, he would like to limit aid to refugees, of whom more than 1.6 million have come to Poland since the beginning of the war. “We help Ukraine too much. We should help them, but Ukrainians should not have the same rights as Polish citizens.”
Although the young man is willing to talk about his attitudes on the street, he does not want to take a picture, it is not pleasant for him. His opinion is still in the minority, and after a few minutes of conversation, he heads down a side street away from the city center.
Exciting result
“But even if the opposition won the elections, it is necessary to realize that they are not fair,” warns a journalist of a liberal political magazine. According to him, the individual parties do not compete with each other, but fight with the entire state apparatus, which is used by Law and Justice.
The ruling party controls a number of media, including the public ones, and thanks to that it had an advantage in, for example, Monday’s pre-election debate. Even campaign expenses are not transparent, and instead of campaigning, individual ministers simply hold press conferences, open new schools or hand over new equipment to hospitals.
For young people, the elections are the most important since the fall of communism. If Law and Justice wins again, it would be the first time that one party has led the country for three consecutive terms.
Pre-election billboard of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and Mateusz Morawiecki on it. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
“I think now is a great time to decide if we want to continue in the direction the current government is taking us. The world is changing very quickly and we have to choose who we want to lead us through these changes,” reflects Oliwia.
Both political blocs portray the vote as a battle between good and evil that must not lose. They hope that this will get even more undecided voters to the polls, which, according to a Kantar survey, is five percent in the whole of Poland. Warsawites trust the opposition in this fight.
2023-10-12 14:48:50
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