Ruling Polish party leading pre-vote polls

LEGIONOWO, Poland — Poland’s ruling conservative party has targeted gays as a campaign tactic. Its programming on state media has drawn comparisons with communist-era propaganda and it has asserted so much control over the judicial system that the European Union has declared the rule of law at risk.

Yet Law and Justice heads into Sunday’s election to the 460-seat lower house and the 100-seat Senate as Poland’s most popular party, largely thanks to generous social spending and an assertive Poland-first stance toward the EU and other countries.

Concerns about democracy have made this one of the country’s most momentous elections since the fall of communism 30 years ago. Critics fear Poland’s illiberal turn could become irreversible if the party wins another four-year term.

In a sign of the deep divide in Polish society, the party’s supporters approve of its conservative defense of the traditional family. For a country whose fate was largely controlled by foreign powers for much of the past two centuries, many Poles like to project strength to the outside world and credit the powerful party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski with defending the nation’s interests when it takes a defiant stance to European partners.

Kaczynski does not hold any formal role in government, but is widely seen as the most powerful man in Poland, picking the prime minister and the Cabinet from behind the scenes.

Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, who won the 2018 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday, is one who believes these are the most important elections since 1989.

“I think this is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism,” Tokarczuk said Friday in Germany, where she was on a book tour.

Kaczynski’s party has been campaigning under the slogan “A Good Time for Poland,” and many agree the country is better off than it has been for much of the past century after almost 30 years of steady economic growth and recent generous social spending policies.

“We are at a level where we can talk about prosperity,” Kaczynski asserted in a recent interview on state radio. “I have been saying this for years: you cannot be telling people all the time that they need to make sacrifices.”

His party has lowered the retirement age, increased pensions and subsidies for farmers and given tax relief to Poles under 26. But it’s the party’s flagship policy — known as 500-plus — that has had the biggest effect. Families get cash transfers of $125 per child per month irrespective of income.

“I can see how things are getting better for young people,” said Tamara Sobierska, a party supporter at a recent campaign rally in Legionowo, a town near Warsaw. Her daughter receives $250 a month in cash subsidies for her two children and her son benefits from the tax relief for young workers.

“There have been no social programs until now for young people, and this is what I find most convincing.”

If Law and Justice failed to win a majority, it would most likely need to form a coalition with another party.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski