Poland today appears poised to join the region’s rightward drift toward nationalism and toss out the center-right party that has governed the EU’s sixth-largest economy for eight years. The favored party in the parliamentary election is an even more conservative one that vows to be less obsequious to richer European partners like Germany, especially over migrants.
Beata Szydlo, the candidate for prime minister of the leading party, called Law and Justice, has campaigned, among other issues, against being forced by the EU to accept a set number of the refugees who have been flooding into Europe.
“I just hope the prime minister will not cave in to the more powerful in the EU,” she said last week. “We are not ready to take in migrants, though we are ready to offer humanitarian assistance. But first and foremost, we need to think about our citizens’ safety.”
Photo: Reuters
Szydlo, a veteran lawmaker, was speaking to a room of supporters at the Amor Wedding House, a banquet hall in the financially struggling Polish town of Makow Mazowiecki, 90 minutes north of Warsaw. Nearly all of the 200 or so supporters in the hall were middle-aged, and their questions bristled of anger over low pensions, lack of jobs and the sense that Poland’s economic growth, while robust compared with other former communist nations in Eastern Europe, had passed them by.
“Look at our ridiculous salaries and miserable pensions,” said Tadeusz Szacka, 69, a mechanic. “People are poor. They can’t find work. My colleague has to go all the way to Warsaw when he works as a security guard. He leaves for work at 4am every day.”
Szacka leaned forward sadly, scanning one of several dozen platters of pastries local party officials had provided.
“If the government finally changes, everything else also should change for the better,” he said.
Every pre-election poll has shown the Law and Justice party well ahead of the governing Civic Platform party, whose candidate for prime minister is the incumbent, Ewa Kopacz, though perhaps not far enough ahead to win a parliamentary majority on its own. As a result, it may need to form a coalition with one or more of the smaller parties.
Law and Justice has campaigned on a “Poland first” message, arguing that the country has become too beholden to the EU and promising to build a more robust regional alliance with neighbors like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
“We are happy to be part of the European Union,” Szydlo said. “We just want to be treated as equals.”
However, there are doubts about how far the new government would go in defying Brussels.
“I would definitely predict that the new government will have closer relations to the United States, as there are quite a few very pro-American politicians within Law and Justice,” said Sergiusz Trzeciak, a political marketing specialist at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw and an independent political consultant. “At the same time, I expect it to try to maintain good relations with the EU in the end. I think it will be more a question of rhetoric than changing policy.”
One issue likely to be given a higher profile by a Law and Justice government — given the party’s aggressive attitude toward Russia, which is even more strident than that of the current governing party — is the presence of more US troops and armaments in Poland.
“It will be a very, very important topic,” said Bartlomiej Biskup, a political scientist at the Institute of Political Sciences in Warsaw. “The new government will insist on the presence of more US troops, and for the building of a defensive missile shield. I would definitely say that their election would make it much more likely there are more American soldiers in Poland five years from now.”
At the same time, political opponents continue to warn in the prelude to today’s voting that Law and Justice would be inclined to follow the example of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and build a more authoritarian state that mixes nationalist language with socialistic economic policies.
A month ago, when the EU voted to require most member nations, including Poland, to accept some of the refugees who had been flooding into Europe, the crisis appeared set to dominate the parliamentary elections. Instead, as the election campaign enters its final days, the focus has moved to the more bread-and-butter issues that usually dominate Polish voting.
Law and Justice has promised to raise the minimum wage, lower the retirement age and cut some taxes, prompting opponents to charge that such measures would hurt Poland’s public finances.
“Basically, the business community has some reservations about Law and Justice based on their populist policies,” Warsaw University of Technology Business School director Witold Orlowski said. “We are not talking about the Greek story, obviously, not something to make the country go bankrupt, but perhaps an increase in the deficit of, say, 2 percent of GDP.”
What Law and Justice will need to do to gain the trust of the business community is to convince them that the party will keep its campaign promises, but that it is not, at heart, anti-business, he added.
“I’m 55 years old, and I’ve lost my job and can’t find another one,” a weeping woman told Szydlo at the Amor Wedding House. “What can you offer me?”
Szydlo did not address the woman’s specific concerns, but she instead used the opportunity to take a swipe at the governing party.
“Those in power keep telling us that unemployment has been dropping,” she said. “So what? People in small towns don’t have jobs. People over 50 can’t find work. We are not going to feed our children with statistics.”
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