Poles in Ireland could swing divisive election
AFTER the nastiest and most divisive election campaign anyone can remember, Poland goes to the polls today. At stake is not just who governs this country, but also its relationship with Europe and beyond. Assaults of candidates, vicious rows over migration, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and sleaze/ corruption have defined a campaign which polls say is too close to call. The result may come down to how well an extreme right-wing party does and if any of the main parties are willing to form a coalition with it.
I moved to the beautiful city of Krakow in September to take up a position at the historic Jagiellonian University.
Founded in 1364, it counts Nicolaus Copernicus and Pope John Paul II among its graduates.
Walking around the atmospheric streets of Krakow, a city familiar to Irish people who visit every year for romantic getaways and stag weekends, I am struck by how well Poland has done since it EU entry in 2004. This is a city of high-tech industry and ancient churches, whose amazing restaurants and bars are packed every night of the week.
The ruling Law and Justice Party, or PiS, has been in power since 2015. A populist, right-wing party with strong ties to the
Catholic Church, its heartland is the Polish countryside. Its main rival, Civic Platform (PO), led by two-time European Commission President Donald Tusk, draws its support mostly from the urban middle classes.
It is safe to assume that very few of my students at Jagiellonian will vote for PiS. This is a rich city, and they are students at one of the country’s top universities; in many ways they live in a different country to the millions who will vote for PiS.
It is when you travel out to the countryside, to former industrial cities like Katowice, just an hour
from Krakow, you see a very different place. Here people are clearly struggling amid high inflation, there is war on its border and the Catholic Church has a strength and influence similar to Ireland in the 1950s and 60s.
Although prime minster Mateusz Morawiecki holds the top job, it is the chairman of PiS, Jarosław Kaczynski, who really calls the shots. A former child movie star from the Communist era, he founded the party with his identical twin brother Lech in 2001.
Lech Kaczynski, then president of Poland, died along with some of the most senior government and military figures in the country when his plane crashed while flying to a commemoration in 2010.
The surviving Kaczynski twin has a particular hatred for his opponent, Donald Tusk, whom he has called ‘sheer evil’ and the feeling appears to be mutual. Tusk who was Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014 before he went to Europe, rarely misses an opportunity to attack him.
Migration has been one of the biggest issues in this election. Poland has taken in millions of Ukrainian refuges since the Russian invasion in 2022 and has been among Ukraine’s closest allies but there are signs that this generosity is fading.
Krakow is just two hours’ drive from the Ukrainian border and the war feels very real here. Many of my students and colleagues are Ukrainian, and while they are grateful for Poland’s support, they tell me that there are signs that the atmosphere is changing, and that this is being exploited by politicians ahead of the election.
With the results set to be very close, it will almost certainly come down to a coalition to form a government. All will be watching how Confederation, an oddball alliance of the far right, libertarians and those who want a return of the monarchy, will do. Its leader Sławomir Mentzen once summed up his position as being ‘against Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and European Union’. They are polling at 10% and could hold the balance of power.
According to the most recent census there are about 100,000 Polish people living in Ireland. They have a vote in the election, and with things so close, their votes will be hugely important.
The EU has accused the current Polish government of rowing back on the rule of law, interfering in the courts and turning state media into a propaganda tool, and have withheld millions in funding.
The concern in Brussels is that if PiS wins it will move ever more away from the EU, with some fearing a possible ‘Polexit’.
That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago when entry into the EU seemed to hold such promise, but war, Russia, migration and a country still struggling with its Communist past have combined to divide this country at the centre of Europe.