“The Future is Poland”: ruling party launches election campaign of thousands of meetings

Poland’s ruling party has inaugurated a campaign of “thousands” of meetings around the country as it launches a bid to win an unprecedented third term in office at this autumn’s elections under the new slogan “The Future is Poland” (Przyszłość to Polska).

“Poland must be stronger and safer. We must be a country where families live better than in the West. Poland is the future!” declared Jarosław Kaczyński, the Law and Justice (PiS) chairman, at a speech in the party’s headquarters to launch the campaign.

Flanked by the party’s leading figures, including current Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and his predecessor Beata Szydło, Kaczyński said that PiS would use the meetings to shape an election programme together with the Polish people.

“They are the best experts,” he explained. “Poles provide us with knowledge about the needs of the nation and we must be guided by their views.”

One commentator, Patryk Michalski, noted that a new campaign video unveiled today features Szydło – who spearheaded PiS’s return to power in 2015 – more times than Morawiecki, who has periodically faced rumours over his position amid reported plots against him within PiS.

“Our years in power have shown that a program can be implemented and Poland can be changed,” said Kaczyński. “After 2015, the socio-economic system changed a lot. The mechanism of exploiting a large part of society by a small, privileged part of society has been radically limited.”

“Poland is different today, better than it was almost eight years ago,” he continued. “We will continue to go in this direction, but…new problems have arisen, including the most difficult ones, such as the economic crisis, inflation and war.”

“Thousands of meetings across Poland are ahead of us,” said PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek, noting that the campaign would begin this weekend with events in Jasło, Kraków, Gdynia and Sandomierz featuring Morawiecki and Szydło.

Polling shows that PiS, with support of around 35%, is on track to win the most votes at this autumn’s parliamentary elections. However, such a result would still be likely to leave the party short of obtaining the majority in the more powerful lower-house Sejm that it would need to remain in power.

If that happened, PiS would need to either form a coalition government – though no other major parties have indicated they would be willing to do so – or it could attempt to encourage individual MPs from other parties to defect to the ruling camp.

Alternatively, a coalition of opposition parties could seek to form the Sejm majority needed to create a new government. A group of such parties, ranging from left to centre-right, have already agreed not to stand candidates against one another for the weaker upper-house Senate.

Main image credit: PiS/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.