{"id":2473,"date":"2023-08-22T16:43:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T15:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/diced\/?p=2473"},"modified":"2023-10-13T11:45:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T10:45:48","slug":"the-second-week-of-the-election-campaign-in-poland-16-22-august-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/diced\/2023\/08\/22\/the-second-week-of-the-election-campaign-in-poland-16-22-august-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"The second week of the election campaign in Poland (16-22 August 2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Written by Filip Bialy<\/em><\/p>\n

The second week of the campaign was going to belong to the Civic Coalition. And it did, but not necessarily in the way it was intended by Donald Tusk who surprisingly announced that Agrounia\u2019s Maciej Ko\u0142odziejczak will run from the Coalition\u2019s election list. But just two days later the main opposition party received a blow after several public figures withdrew from its campaign event in protest against perceived censorship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 16 October announcement of what effectively is Agorunia\u2019s accession to Civic Coalition taken the public by surprise because for several weeks the media were reporting about Ko\u0142odziejczak\u2019s negotiations with the leaders of the Third Way. The Agorunia\u2019s leader will eventually run from the first place of the Coalition\u2019s list in Konin, a medium-sized city in the heart of Poland. It was met with lukewarm reaction from the Polish People\u2019s Party which perceives a more radical Agrounia as a threat to its position in the Polish countryside. But the move may be a blow not just to the Third Way which, with 9% in the polls, is currently balancing on the electoral threshold which is 8% for coalitions. It also sends a message to Law and Justice which electoral success might rely on the rural and small-town voters. Although farmers are not as large part of electorate as they used to be several decades ago, they are still a politically important segment of the population, especially with their ability to focus media attention with well-organised protests.<\/p>\n

A day later yet another announcement from the opposition camp: a common list of candidates for the senate was presented. The so-called Senate Pact means that in 100 of electoral districts (wich is the same as the number of senators) Civic Coalition, the New Left, Poland 2050, Polish People\u2019s Party and the Local Government Movement \u201cYes for Poland\u201d will not be running against each other. A similar alliance in the previous election gave the opposition majority in the senate.<\/p>\n

Symmetrists\u2019 revolt<\/strong><\/p>\n

And yet the opposition struggles to gather momentum. The so-called Campus Poland of the Future – formally organised not by the party but rather by a foundation closely tied to Rafa\u0142 Trzaskowski who was the party\u2019s presidential candidate in 2020 election – was planned as a campaign event that would allow Civic Coalition to show its widespread appeal. The Campus took place several times in the recent years, with number of meetings and workshops with celebrities, authors, journalists, and academics.<\/p>\n

During this year\u2019s edition the Symmetrists Panel, was going to be a debate between journalists, academics, and media personalities who are critical both of Law and Justice and Civic Coalition (hence the name, which is used in a derogatory manner by the Civic Coalition supporters.. The moderator and participants, most of them ideologically on the left – at least in the economic sense – resigned in protest after the Campus organisers removed a journalist Grzegorz Sroczy\u0144ski from the panel. The removal was a result of another protest – that of the Civic Coalition\u2019s radical internal group which took issue with Sroczy\u0144ski\u2019s criticism. The resignation of the panel members allowed Law and Justice and the right-wing media to mock the opposition\u2019s \u201ccensorship\u201d and the Campus – which is going to happen only later this week – seems to be already doomed.<\/p>\n

Kaczy\u0144ski interprets referendum questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of Law and Justice, after the referendum was officially approved by the parliament, the party is actively using referendum issues in the election campaign. During a harvest festival on 20 August, Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski offered his comments on the referendum question about the barrier between Poland and Belarus. In his interpretation, the question is, in its essence, about whether \u201cPoland would be given up for occupation without a fight, or whether we will be fighting for every square centimetre of our land\u201d.<\/p>\n

Calling for the \u201c4 x NO\u201d vote in the referendum, Kaczy\u0144ski said that \u201cthis is the only answer that ensures that development will continue in Poland, that Poland will be safe, that there will not be the various social experiments that we lived through, the older ones of us remember them very well – the 1990s, huge unemployment, hungry children, calls on television to help them but they still remained hungry, and people who had a sense of complete hopelessness, and misery passed from father to son, from generation to generation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Online activities<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the Internet front, political parties are closing their ranks. Generally speaking, Law and Justice politicians are efficient, if not very subtle, followers of the party\u2019s \u201ccommunications of the day\u201d: the leadership sends out internal instructions on what should be said online and soon afterwards the party members\u2019 social media profiles are full of suspiciously similar posts. The more liberal Civic Coalition usually leaves its members a bit more freedom. In the case of the referendum, the Coalition\u2019s \u201ccommunication of the day\u201d was to mock the highly biased referendum questions. It resulted in party members proposing more and more outrageous questions on social media. For the time being, it seems to be the most the opposition is able to offer in response to the referendum.<\/p>\n

The battle of hashtags is also ongoing, with Civic Coalition\u2019s #PolskaWNaszychSercach (\u201cPoland in our hearts\u201d) frequently trending. The hashtag has its real-world counterpart as the Coalition\u2019s politicians wear the heart-shaped stickers during campaign events. Law and Justice responds with the referendum-related hashtag #BezpecznaPrzysz\u0142o\u015b\u0107Polak\u00f3w (\u201csafe future of the Polish people\u201d). Otherwise the social media are buzzing with heated discussions reflecting a quickly moving campaign and daily events.<\/p>\n

In other news:<\/strong><\/p>\n