Political “Super Saturday” sees Poland’s main groups campaign ahead of elections

Today saw all five of Poland’s main political groups hold major events in what media dubbed “Super Saturday”, as campaigning for this autumn’s elections heats up.

The national-conservative ruling United Right (ZP) coalition focused its message on defending Poland’s sovereignty from EU “attacks”. The main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), however, warned that, by isolating Poland from its allies, the government is threatening national security.

Meanwhile, the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) outlined plans to slash taxes and social spending; the Third Way (Trzecia Droga) alliance presented its “radical centrism” as an alternative to the PiS-PO “civil war”; and the Left (Lewica) further expounded a programme focused on supporting women.

Monthly averages of support for main political parties in opinion polls (via: ewybory.eu)

“We have to fight a great battle for Poland,” said Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of the main ruling Law and Justice (PiS), at the United Right gathering in Bogatynia. The small town of 16,000 was an unusual choice for a large rally. Today’s event had initially been planned in Łódź, Poland’s fourth largest city.

However, in a last-minute change, the venue was switched to Bogatynia, which sits alongside Turów, a major coal mine and power plant that has been subject to domestic and European legal action from Poland’s neighbours, Germany and the Czech Republic.

“Turów has become a symbol of Polish resistance to the Berlin-Brussels diktat, a symbol of energy sovereignty, but also a symbol of Polish sovereignty in general,” said Zbigniew Ziobro, justice minister and leader of PiS’s junior coalition partner Sovereign Poland (SP), quoted by Polsat News.

Kaczyński, who returned to the government this week as deputy prime minister, likewise declared that “what is happening around the mine is nothing more than an attack on our sovereignty”. However, he emphasised that, despite its differences with Brussels, Poland “will be in the European Union, but we will be sovereign”.

The United Right convention also saw the continuation of recent criticism of plans to create a new EU system for redistributing migrants and asylum seekers, something Poland is strongly opposed to.

Kaczyński blamed the migration crisis on the “Western elites” and warned that “we will defend ourselves, we will not allow others to decide for us”.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, leader of PO, addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the city of Wrocław, which, like Bogatynia, is also located in the southwestern province of Lower Silesia.

Tusk warned that, at a time of insecurity beyond Poland’s eastern borders, it was vital that the country retains good relations with its western neighbours. “Anyone who declares war on the European Union and the West at this time threatens the interests of our homeland,” he said, referring to PiS.

Regarding PiS’s decision to switch its conference to Bogatynia, Tusk claimed that the failings of the coal mine there are due to the government’s own corruption and incompetence. “In Bogatynia like in the rest of Poland, what PiS cannot steal they will destroy,” he declared, referring to allegations of nepotism in state companies. “That is the definition of their rule.”

In the capital, Warsaw, Confederation – one of the smallest groups in parliament but currently running third in the polls – held a convention at which it unveiled its “Constitution of Freedom”, reports broadcaster RMF.

Krzysztof Bosak, one of the party’s leaders, said that their four main aims were to introduce simple and low taxes, to make social insurance payments for businesses voluntary, to reduce the price of housing by 30%, and to ensure that the right to use cash is protected in the constitution.

Confederation has since last autumn shifted focus away from its nationalist, often xenophobic rhetoric and instead focused on the economically libertarian aspects of its programme. That has seen its support in polls rise to around 11%, making it a potential kingmaker after the elections.

During a speech at today’s event, another of the party’s leaders, Sławomir Mentzen, pledged to end the additional pension payments introduced by the United Right government and not allow the payments from its flagship “500+” child benefit programme to be increased, as PiS recently proposed.

Just outside Warsaw, in the town of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the recently formed Third Way alliance held a convention at which one of its leaders, Władysław Kosiniuk-Kamysz, said that the group offers a “radical centrism” beyond the traditional division between PiS and PO.

“We must end this civil war, because it will end tragically,” added Kosiniuk-Kamysz, quoted by the Wprost weekly.

“A divided home, a divided nation means insecurity,” agreed the alliance’s other leader, Szymon Hołownia, quoted by the Onet news website. “We will bring you peace, you will be safe with the Third Way, that is our guarantee”.

The alliance was formed earlier this year between Kosiniuk-Kamysz’s agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) and Hołownia’s centrist Poland 2050 (Polski 2050). However, after a strong start in the polls, its support has recently been in danger of falling below the 8% vote threshold needed for coalitions to enter parliament.

Finally, at an event in Warsaw, The Left – which is the third largest party in parliament but only currently the fifth most popular in the polls, with support of 7-8% – continued its recent focus on winning the votes of women.

A group of its female MPs outlined recent policy promises by the party to end the near-total ban on abortion and allow terminations on demand, to provide free contraception, state funding for IVF treatment, and to improve sex education in schools.

“We want a safe and free Poland, a Poland free of fear for women,” said Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, one of its MPs, quoted by RMF. “Because a safe Polish woman is a safe Poland, and that is our most important election promise.”

Main image credit: pisorgpl/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.