A far-right party with a record of antisemitic and anti-migration messages which has pushed Poland’s government to weaken its support for Ukraine could become kingmaker in pivotal elections next month.
The Confederation party has been jostling for third spot in opinion polls ahead of the October 15 parliamentary election, potentially deciding whether the ruling rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party of Jarosław Kaczyński stays in power.
“What is most important in this election is who will be third, and if it’s Confederation, it will be a disaster,” said Robert Biedroń, Poland’s first openly gay politician and one of the party leaders of the Lewica (New Left) alliance, which has around 10 per cent of the vote in aggregate polls.
A tie-up between Donald Tusk’s centre-right Civic Platform, Lewica and the Third Way alliance of centrist parties could muster sufficient votes to form a government. But if Tusk fell short of a majority with those two groups, he could attempt to strike a deal with Confederation — which he has ruled out so far — and which would complicate working with other allies.
The possibility that Confederation doubles its parliamentary representation if it capitalises on a summer surge in support has caused alarm in other opposition parties, which have warned about the dangers of a far-right alliance with Kaczyński or Tusk.
Given their ideological alignment, Confederation would be a natural ally to PiS, which is polling at about 35 per cent, meaning it would need a junior partner to stay in power. The ruling party has clamped down on abortion rights and recently adopted a more Ukraine-critical stance, in line with Confederation messaging.
Some of the issues PiS voters are most upset about have been amplified by Confederation — notably the government’s generous stance on Ukrainian refugees and the grain imports from its war-torn neighbour which caused a temporary glut on the Polish market.
President Andrzej Duda, a PiS appointee, recently compared Ukraine to a drowning person who clings on to their rescuer, endangering both their lives. Government officials have signalled that the benefits enjoyed by Ukrainian refugees will end next year and not be renewed.
Prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki went as far as suggesting that Warsaw will no longer supply weapons to Kyiv — a statement later rolled back by his government.
If it were to become PiS junior coalition partner, Confederation would be likely to further weaken Poland’s support for Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently accused those in Europe who focus on domestic political concerns over solidarity with Ukraine of “helping set the stage for a Moscow actor”.
Confederation leader Krzysztof Bosak denied being a pro-Russian party and told the Financial Times his party does not “have any delusion about Russia”. However, on Ukrainian refugees, he said “we believe the policies of the Polish government are now going too far”.
Amping up public fatigue with Ukraine, Bosak and fellow Confederation members earlier this week staged a protest in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw. They held up a mock bill for their estimated 101.3bn zloty ($23.4bn) of Polish support, on which they also wrote: “Paid: zero, gratitude: none.”
Despite their alignment on most issues, a potential obstacle to a Confederation-PiS alliance is their significant divergence on economic policy and the far-right’s party declared disdain not only for Tusk but also Kaczyński. “This big conflict between them is just a conflict between two parts of the old establishment,” Bosak said in an interview. “What is important is the generation gap between us and them.”
Confederation has sought to rebrand itself by promoting a younger generation of leaders and toning down its 2019 election programme which opposed “Jews, homosexuals, abortions, taxes and the EU”. It sidelined its openly antisemitic voices such as Grzergorz Braun, who in May broke up a lecture about the Holocaust by storming on to the stage and smashing the speaker’s microphone.
But other controversial characters continue to feature on the party’s list of candidates, like octogenarian Janusz Korwin-Mikke who is running in Warsaw. Korwin-Mikke, a former member of the European parliament, has argued that women should not vote as they are allegedly biologically inferior to men.
“Every party can have some MPs who are more radical but they should not be at the centre of the campaign,” Bosak said.
Still, the party’s chauvinist, homophobic worldview fails to appeal to women, who are barely represented in its structures. “We were never an especially pro-men party, so it’s quite surprising for us that this difference between voters is so big,” Bosak claimed.
In keeping with controversial topics that boost the party’s profile on social media, Confederation promoted conspiracy theories during the Covid-19 pandemic that earned it a temporary ban on Facebook.
Italian premier Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party are a role model for Confederation. “They got 2 per cent in the polls at the beginning and now she’s prime minister,” Bosak said. “This is the example of big political success, of people who have this balance between being politically incorrect but not far right, not too radical to have success in democracy.”
Like Vox in Spain and Italy’s Brothers and League parties, Confederation has also calibrated its Eurosceptic message for a Polish electorate that remains committed to EU membership. The party now wants to overhaul EU institutions rather than abandon them.
“We’re attacked for being Polexiters but we would rather focus on stopping new regulations that are not in line with the interests of Polish people,” Bosak said.
Supporters welcome this approach. “There are different people inside this party, but overall the party is not intolerant and is the same as the Tea Party in America, especially good for business and making our bureaucracy and life simpler,” said gynaecologist Wojciech Zawalski, who will vote for Confederation next month.
Given that support for Confederation has fallen back to about 10 per cent from a peak of 15 per cent in July, the party could follow Vox’s path in July and underperform on election day, said Anna Wojciuk, a politics professor at Warsaw University who specialises in authoritarian populism.
But she said Confederation could still finish third thanks to “a very varied offer” that appeals to different constituencies, from voters attracted by its small-state agenda to those drawn to its nationalism or call for a clearly more patriarchal society.
The prospect of PiS becoming hostage to tougher demands from Confederation as a junior government partner is “worrisome,” for Poland, the EU and also Ukraine, Wojciuk said: “I think that such a coalition government could be more xenophobic towards the refugees and complicate both the logistics of the war and the EU accession process for Ukraine.”
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