Small left-wing party cuts ties with Poland’s ruling coalition

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

A small left-wing party, Together (Razem), has decided to cut ties with Poland’s ruling coalition. It accuses the government of failing to fulfil its promises and says that it will vote against next year’s proposed state budget unless it includes more healthcare spending and pay raises for public sector workers.

However, Together itself has also split, with five of its ten parliamentarians announcing a few days earlier that they would leave the party and establish a new group that would seek to work more closely with the ruling coalition.

Since last year’s parliamentary elections, Together has been in an unusual situation. It won seats in parliament standing as part of The Left (Lewica), an alliance of left-wing groups.

But after the elections, when a new government was being formed, while most of The Left joined the ruling coalition alongside centrist and centre-right parties, Together decided not to. However, it remained part of The Left’s parliamentary caucus and supported the formation of the government.

Now, at a party congress on Sunday, a majority of delegates voted to leave The Left’s caucus and form their own separate group in parliament.

Together also declared that it would vote against the government’s proposed budget in its current form. But, even without the party’s five members of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house, the ruling coalition has a majority of 241 seats in the 460-seat chamber.

Explaining his party’s decision, Together’s leader, Adrian Zandberg, said that “the government is failing group after group: workers, women, patients and the young generation, who have been left at the mercy of banks and developers”.

“Unfortunately, this is the reality today after a year of [Prime Minister] Donald Tusk’s rule,” he added. “We all voted for change a year ago. We voted with the hope that the repair of the state would begin. After a year, we have to say honestly that this did not happen.”

A poll in June showed that 36% of those who voted for The Left last year were disappointed with the government’s work so far. That contrasted to only 9% of voters for Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO).

Among their main grievances have been the failures to carry out the promised liberalisation of Poland’s abortion law – which is among the strictest in Europe – to strengthen workers’ rights, and to improve the healthcare system.

Referring to the government’s proposed spending plans for 2025, Zandberg called it “a bad, anti-social budget that hits public healthcare, public sector employees, which is very stingy when it comes to science, research, development and housing”.

“On the other hand, it is very generous to millionaires, banks and developers,” he continued. “We will fight for changes in parliament. We will not allow ourselves to be politically intimidated, nor will we allow ourselves to be bought by sinecures. If changes are not introduced, we will vote against this budget.”

Among the changes Together is seeking are boosting healthcare spending by 20 billion zloty (€4.6 billion), raising salaries in the public sector, and increased investment in research and development. To fund this it wants higher taxes on banks, large corporations, property developers and millionaires.

Together’s decision was met by a sarcastic response from Tusk, who tweeted that the party’s name, like that of the main opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, must have been “invented by someone with an extraordinary sense of humour, a dark one”.

The impact of Together’s departure from The Left was also reduced by the decision, a few days before the party’s congress, of three of its members of the Sejm and two of its senators to leave the party.

The quintet – Magdalena Biejat, Anna Górska, Daria Gosek-Popiołek, Dorota Olko and Joanna Wicha – wrote in a statement that, rather than “critiquing” from the sidelines, they “want to build serious cooperation in the [Left’s] parliamentary caucus”.

While the “ruling coalition [is] far from our dreams…we believe that it is our responsibility to strengthen the voice of The Left,” they added. “The stronger The Left’s parliamentary caucus, the stronger The Left in the government.”

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mateusz Skwarczek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl