Far right launches election campaign promising to “give Poland back” to the people

Poland’s main far-right political group, Confederation (Konfederacja), held a convention on Saturday under the slogan “We Will Give You Poland Back”.

“It is up to us to decide about our lives, not officials in Brussels or the Davos [World Economic] Forum,” declared Sławomir Mentzen, one of the group’s leaders. He said they are aiming for a double-digit share of the vote at this autumn’s elections.

Polling currently puts support for Confederation around 6%, narrowly above the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament. Given that those polls also indicate that neither the current ruling camp nor the main opposition may obtain an outright majority, that could leave the far right as kingmakers.

Monthly polling averages for Poland’s six main political groups (source: ewybory.eu)

Saturday’s event came amid recent and ongoing splits within Confederation, which has seen some leading figures depart and others apparently sidelined. This, however, provides Confederation with the chance for a “new opening”, says Mentzen.

Last week saw a quarter of the party’s 12 MPs leave. Artur Dziambor, who heads a group called The Libertarians (Wolnościowcy), was expelled, taking his two colleagues, Dobromir Sośnierz and Jakub Kulesza, with him. Dziambor claimed the rift had emerged because Confederation was too soft towards Russia.

Meanwhile, two Confederation’s founders and leading figures, veteran libertarian Janusz Korwin-Mikke and radical-right figure Grzegorz Braun, did not speak at Saturday’s convention. Both are seen as sympathetic towards Russia and have been critical of Ukraine.

At the event, neither of the main speakers – Mentzen and Krzysztof Bosak, who was the group’s presidential candidate in 2020, when he won 7% of the vote – mentioned the war in Ukraine at all, notes news service Interia.

Both Bosak and Mentzen focused their attacks on the main centrist opposition, which is centred around Civic Platform (PO), as well as the national-conservative ruling coalition, which is dominated by the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

“We reject the arrogance of PO, which it showed during its rule [from 2007-15], but we also reject the fossilised statism of PiS – the cronyism, the incompetence and the shame you bring upon us,” declared Bosak.

Despite the expulsion of Dziambor and his Libertarians, the convention featured strong free-market rhetoric. “Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell,” said Bosak.

The nationalist leader also claimed that Confederation is being censored by Polish public media, which is under the influence of PiS, and by Facebook, which has banned the party from its platform for spreading hate speech and Covid disinformation.

Both Bosak and Mentzen also hit out at the European Union and other “globalists”, in particular for the green policies they have promoted. “They want to decide our every move, track our every move, decide what we eat, what we drink, how we live and what we talk about with friends,” said Mentzen, quoted by the Do Rzeczy weekly.

“My home is my business. My garage is my business. My plate is my business,” he declared.

Meanwhile, in a separate development over the weekend, Robert Bąkiewicz, the head of the Independence March – an annual nationalist event in Warsaw organised by far-right groups – was dismissed from his position.

Bąkiewicz has faced growing criticism in recent times from other far-right figures – including some of the leaders of Confederation – for “selling out” to PiS, in the words of Bosak. Groups linked to Bąkiewicz have received millions of zloty in government grants.

On Sunday, a general meeting of the Independence March Association voted to remove Bąkiewicz from his position. Bąkiewicz himself, however, claims that the vote was held illegitimately and says he does not recognise the result.

Main image credit: Konfederacja_/Twitter

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.