Poland’s elections could be won or lost in the countryside

By Krzysztof Mularczyk

Poland’s recent decision to unilaterally ban Ukrainian grain imports – angering both Kyiv and Brussels – has highlighted just how important the rural vote is for the ruling party as it seeks a third term.

To have any chance of retaining its majority in this autumn’s parliamentary elections – which polls suggest will be very close – the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party must continue its dominance in rural areas by ensuring that the problems and concerns of this constituency are addressed.

That is why it has been desperate to resolve problems over the import of Ukrainian grain and is unlikely to repeat the mistake it made in 2020 of proposing pro-animal welfare policies that farmers felt would hit their incomes.

In Poland, rural areas account for around 40% of the population, one of the highest figures in the European Union. By contrast, the figure is 2% in Belgium, 19% in Spain and France, and 22% in Germany, according to the World Bank.

Polish farmers and the rural population as a whole have made more rapid advances than urban Poland during the period of Poland’s membership of the EU, with the value of agri-food exports from Poland increasing over 13-fold between 2000 and 2020.

That has resulted in a steady convergence of living standards between urban and rural areas. But this does not mean that their political views voters have also converged. Indeed, they remain markedly different.

How the rural political map evolved

In times when rural Poland was suffering deprivation and dislocation as a result of the post-communist transition to a market economy, its politics was dominated by the moderate Polish People’s Party – a longstanding force in the countryside which argued for state protection of and intervention in the rural economy – and the radical populist Self-Defence (Samoobrona), which warned that EU membership would destroy Polish agriculture.

However, once the economic situation improved, rural voters turned to a party that was socially conservative, supportive of state intervention, and wary of too much European integration.

PiS has been politically dominant in rural Poland since the mid-noughties, as farmers and rural voters gradually fell out of love with PSL, which paid the price for joining coalition governments first with the left and then with the liberal Civic Platform (PO). It was a classic case of a party that had failed to listen to its voters getting displaced by another that was prepared to do so.

Meanwhile, other opposition parties – PO, The Left, the centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) – have totally failed to get through to rural voters. In many ways, they have spent the last seven years alienating them.

The tactics of encouraging street demonstrations and of actively seeking the sanctioning of Poland in the EU might have cut through with urban voters, but they have gone down badly in rural areas, which are far less understanding of demonstrations and more distrustful of foreigners.

Meanwhile, it is not PIS’s agricultural policies that have been the decisive factor in its dominance in rural areas. Social transfers certainly play an important role. In rural areas, there are more beneficiaries of such policies, including pensioners and large families with children.

Axiological issues are also of considerable importance. A significant factor in securing PiS’s domination in generally conservative rural areas has been the way the party has moved ever closer to the Catholic church.

This has probably hurt it in urban areas, where church attendance has been declining more markedly. But in the countryside, the church remains a very important institution. Here again, the opposition’s stance of arguing for less state involvement with the church has less traction than in cities.

Support for the EU but not all things EU

It would seem to be a paradox that farmers and rural residents, who have benefitted the most from Poland’s EU membership, should be voting for a party that is reputed to be Eurosceptic.

The vast majority of rural residents (90%) and farmers (88%) are in favour of Poland being part of the EU. Just as Polish society at large, they recognise the benefits of European integration.

But it does not mean that rural voters necessarily approve of all the policies pursued within the EU. Socially liberal stances on LGBT rights and abortion have less traction in these areas than in urban society and it is the attitudes of the conservative PiS which better reflect the sentiments of rural Poland.

All these factors influenced the results of the presidential election in 2020. Andrzej Duda, the incumbent and PiS-supported candidate, won the election thanks to high support in rural areas, where he polled 64% of the vote (compared to 51% nationwide).

As former PO leader Grzegorz Schetyna once said, elections are won in rural communities like Końskie in the Świętokrzyskie province and not in the Wilanów or Ursynów districts of the capital Warsaw.

Change in the offing?

Over the past two years, new factors have emerged which may significantly change the political map of rural areas.

These include the pandemic, high inflation, the slowdown in economic growth, the war in Ukraine, the conflict between the Polish government and EU institutions as well as the presence of new political players such as Poland 2050 led and Agrounia, a farmers’ protest movement led by Michał Kołodziejczak.

Poland 2050’s pro-environmental message is probably not in line with rural concerns, as the demands of the EU’s “Green Deal” are increasingly worrying rural voters. They fear that it will increase the costs of transport and reduce mobility while making agricultural production more expensive.

On the face of it, it is AgroUnia, with its message of demanding more state help for rural areas and better deals for farmers, that should be better placed.

However, it has realised that its agrarian focus limits its support and this is why it has now formed an alliance with what remains of former deputy prime minister Jarosław Gowin’s centre-right Agreement (Porozumienie) party. This is a very fresh venture with few known faces which has so far failed to make any significant inroads in either rural or urban areas. It is polling around 1%.

At first sight, it would seem that the nationalist-libertarian Confederation (Konfederacja), with its young leadership of Sławomir Mentzen and Krzysztof Bosak concentrating on free market ideas, should cut little ice in rural areas which are supportive of social welfare policies.

But Confederation’s rejection of political correctness and social liberalism is adjacent to rural voters’ views and the grain saga may make these voters more susceptible to the Confederation’s messaging, which has criticised the government’s strong support for Ukraine.

Confederation is also an attractive option for those who are nationalist oriented. The party’s stance on the EU is even more directed towards defending sovereignty than is PiS’s, and the Confederates can point to the fact that PiS, while making Eurosceptic noises, has given in on the Lisbon Treaty, the conditionality mechanism, mutualisation of debt and the Green Deal.

We are not talking about a large number of votes being gettable in such a way, but every little bit helps and Confederation could yet be more of a thorn in the side of PiS in rural areas than the ruling conservatives may have expected.

Animal welfare and Ukrainian grain: second-term blues

The second term of the PiS government has not been plain sailing for the party in rural areas. It made a significant political error in attempting to push through legislation on animal welfare that farmers felt would damage their incomes.

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński is an animal lover and was persuaded by the youth wing of PiS to attempt a comprehensive animal welfare bill that the party hoped would increase its support among young urban voters.

The problem was that the measure raised the hackles of farmers and rural voters. They became alarmed at the fact that they could lose business if ritual slaughter and fur farming were banned.

The attempt to force through the bill led to the departure of agriculture minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski, who was popular among farmers, and a substantial rebellion of PiS parliamentary deputies. Kaczyński was forced to back down.

But worse has followed these last few months with the issue of Ukrainian grain. The issue arose as a result of an EU decision to open “solidarity corridors” that would allow Ukrainian grain to pass through the EU and onto the Middle Eastern and African markets.

But as soon as those corridors were opened, a deal was struck with the help of the UN for Ukraine to be able to move grain from its Black Sea ports. The grain that poured through the Polish border has increasingly been staying in Poland.

This, together with a good harvest in 2022, created a glut on the market, causing irate farmers considerable losses and worries about where they are to store the grain produced in Poland this year. There have been several protests involving the blocking of roads and the egging of agriculture minister Henryk Kowalczyk, who has since resigned and been replaced by Robert Telus.

The changing of the guard in the agriculture ministry will not automatically solve the problem. The warehouses are still full of grain and the capacity of Polish ports to shift it is limited.

Belatedly something has been done that should have been done at the outset: the cargo rail trucks with the grain were sealed so they could not be opened in Poland. But this was the equivalent of locking the stable door when the horse has bolted.

The EU is unlikely to withdraw its permission for Ukrainian grain to enter EU territory. Since Ukraine is now a candidate for EU membership, Poland and other countries have to start getting used to what the consequences of that entail.

Ukraine has huge agricultural production potential, which will be used on EU markets in the future. Polish farmers know this very well and are worried about the implications. PiS’s pro-Ukrainian stance could yet be a problem for the party with a large segment of the rural vote in future.

For the time being, however, the government should have enough resources to compensate farmers for their losses and to do more to move the grain out of Poland. The fact that it is now blocking Ukrainian grain from entry into the country as well as guaranteeing a minimum price for the grain is indicative of the alarm in the ruling camp over this issue.

PiS still in the driving seat

This is why the most likely outcome, come the autumn, will once again be PiS polling heavily in rural areas, something that the increased number of polling stations being prepared for the election in such areas is designed to facilitate.

The party will be able to point to the prosperity enjoyed by rural voters as a result of its welfare policies and trade with EU countries, and to present itself as a defender of traditional values as well as Polish interests.

Given the confused messages coming from the liberal opposition, and the fact that Confederation is heavily reliant on the youth vote and is being denied access to public media, often the sole source of information in some rural communities, PiS should come out well on top in rural areas.

But if it comes short of getting a parliamentary majority, it may rue the mistakes it made over animal welfare and Ukrainian grain.

Main image credit: MRiRS (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Krzysztof Mularczyk worked for four years for TVP’s English language service. Previously he has held executive positions in civil society organisations and in the UN system.