New kingmaker: Far-right shadow looms larger over Poland’s elections

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) – Polish politics could have a new kingmaker by the end of this year: the far-right Konfederacja, or Confederation, party.

With elections due in the fall, polls show Confederation could double its share of seats in parliament.

A recent survey by pollster Estimator gave the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) 35.9%, the main opposition group Civic Coalition (KO) 29.6%, and 13.9% for Confederation.

The Left alliance, and another group of the Polish People’s Party and Polska 2050, are stuck on the margins between 7% to 9%.

Janusz Korwin-Mikke, co-founder of Confederation and a former lawmaker in the European Parliament, has not ruled out coalition talks with other forces, making the party’s presence in a future government all the more likely.

Asked if this was a cause for worry, Aleks Szczerbiak, a political scientist at the University of Sussex, said: “Yes, for the liberal-left consensus, which has been critical of PiS since it came to power in 2015.”

He said the Confederation is “more pragmatic than people believe.”

“I can’t see them maintaining this extremism if inside the government. They will also not be calling the shots as a junior partner,” he said.

For all its gains, Confederation still faces the challenge of wider acceptance in Poland.

A poll commissioned by a Polish media group shows more than 61% of citizens do not want the ruling camp to bring the far-right into government, with just over 22% viewing such a coalition favorably.

- An odd bag

So what is Confederation, what does it want, and who would want to create a coalition with it?

Confederation is mainly made up of economic libertarians close to Korwin-Mikke, along with radical nationalists from the National Movement (RN) group.

“It is a party that is anarcho-libertarian. On economic issues, they basically want the state to completely leave the economy,” Artur Lipinski, professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, told Anadolu.

“But the party is pretty dangerous because they combine this with ultra-nationalism and ultra-Catholicism.”

In the last elections in 2019, Confederation secured 6.8% of the vote and 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament.

Krzysztof Bosak, the party’s candidate for president who finished with just under 7% in 2020, was replaced last year by Slawomir Mentzen, a more media-savvy and less overtly extreme figure.

Mentzen, though, is not a centrist by any means. He wants a return of the death penalty, 10-year prison sentences for women who have abortions, and “un-dissolvable” marriages that can only be terminated by the church.

In 2019, he presented Confederation’s five main policy points as: “We don’t want Jews, gays, abortion, taxes, and the EU.”

Confederation has also questioned Poland’s “unconditional support” for Ukraine and its transatlantic ties.

This has created rifts within the party, as evidenced by the case of Artur Dziambor, a lawmaker leading The Libertarians (Wolnosciowcy) group, who was expelled for claiming that Confederation was too soft on Russia.

“In terms of their attitudes to the war in Ukraine, they are not as supportive as PiS. They feel that Polish national interest needs to be asserted even more,” Szczerbiak told Anadolu in a video interview.

Confederation is also seeking support from Polish farmers, who have traditionally backed the PiS, but are upset about competition from cheap Ukrainian grain.

- ‘Radicalization of the mainstream’

The glue that holds together the party’s radical nationalism and extreme free market liberalism is Euroscepticism.

This is a position close to the ruling coalition, which has been at odds with Brussels over alleged democratic backsliding for several years.

“PiS, for all its skepticism of the EU, still believes Poland should remain a member,” said Szczerbiak.

“Confederation is not going to come out openly in favor of ‘Polexit’ because it knows that would be electoral suicide, but it will be more hardline in its attitudes than even PiS.”

Szczerbiak believes a workable government between a statist party and one that believes in cutting state intervention to the bone would be difficult to manage.

“Most people tend to assume Confederation will go in with PiS, but I don’t think we should be so certain of this. Partly because its long-term strategic objective is to move aside the PiS,” he said.

This may mean a minority PiS government propped up by an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition, he added.

He said Confederation aims to replace PiS as the main party on the right, particularly after its 73-year-old leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski stands down.

That could happen most likely during the next parliament and would increase the PiS’ chances of achieving its objective, he added.

PiS has traditionally deployed the tactic of out-flanking the far-right in its rhetoric, against the LGBTQI+ and migrants, for example.

“I would say this is about radicalization of the mainstream. They [PiS] will, in terms of the cultural and moral agenda, simply radicalize themselves and be competing with Confederation, or simply position themselves as the better or more effective right-wing,” said Lipinski.