Almost 3 months to the election and until then Sławomir Mentzen He might not be bringing in his large polls yet. However, he has surely already been a large success: both main contenders to the Presidential Palace race present to support his electorate, taking over his postulates and language.
Much has been written about the return to the law of Rafał Trzaskowski and Platforma, little about the "confederatisation" of the message of the PiS candidate in this campaign. And it is so crucial that it should actually be considered whether the malicious word "citizen candidate" as "Karola Nowogrodzki" is even more appropriate – due to the fact that it is increasingly changing to "Karola Confederacy".
Only in fresh days Nawrocki suggested limiting access to the Polish wellness care strategy to Ukrainians – due to the fact that how else to realize the inflections about Ukrainians "tendering problems in queues to a doctor" – he announced that he would be happy to lower taxes together with Mentzen, yet let his eye go to the anti-vaccinating electorate. At this rate, Nawrocki's run to May will blow up the last walls separating the PiS from the Confederacy present and bridges connecting the organization with the centreright or with the officially celebrated "inheritment of Lech Kaczyński" by Novgorod.
‘Unless on a stake’
The most public opinion was that of vaccines. Not only did its content help, but besides a form resembling the “humor of school notebooks”. The "citizen candidate" declared: "I am against forced vaccinations, especially adults, but besides children, excluding only those diseases which are a general threat to the population, we know the case of palliosis vaccination and Heiny-Medina disease, that is my position."
Nawrocki is not the first PiS candidate to play an anti-vaccination card, and Andrzej Duda utilized to wipe the tracks here during the debate with himself in Koński. Duda later explained that he only meant compulsory vaccinations for covid – which was a very controversial issue at the time – but it was apparent that the president was giving a signal to all anti-vaccinators that he thought like them.
Nawrocki will most likely effort to defend himself like Duda, saying that he pointed out that vaccination for diseases "which are a general threat to the population" should, however, be mandatory. The problem is that it is hard to find diseases requiring mandatory vaccination that are not – the message of a "citizen candidate" is completely meaningless and gibberish not only due to the unfortunate "palio". In fact, the run message will only number for "I am against compulsory vaccinations", not what Nawrocki said after "but".
Nowogrodzka's candidate reaches for this subject and undermines the public's assurance in the universal vaccination strategy at a time erstwhile there is no discussion of the fresh vaccine and its function in the fight against the pandemic, playing for an interesting subject regardless of the context of the most extremist anti-vaccination electorate, even more gravitating towards Grzegorz Braun than Mentzen. For a tiny political gain, it legitimises in the mainstream public debate the most harsh views and the environment.
Nawrocki was chosen, among others, due to the fact that the PiS candidate did not gotta explain himself to the "pandemysceptic" electorate from the decision on lockdowns, compulsory masks and another means of combating the pandemic that the Moravian government had taken. So openly playing an anti-vaccination card, Nawrocks ostentatically throws out the image of the PiS as a organization that, in an increasingly devastating polarized logic of public wellness issues, could, at least in a pandemic, defy scurry and behave with simple work for the state and society.
Let's not overdo it.
A lot of bad things can be said about the period 2015-2023. 1 good thing surely happened then: the Law and Justice Office made a fundamental social correction of the Polish social and political model. This was especially symbolized by the 500+ programme, which, apart from its social or tangible financial significance, besides had a deep symbolic sense: it sent a signal to many Polish families who felt abandoned by the state for years, that the state had not forgotten them at all.
Of course, it was absurd to draw the conclusion from this that it was the Law and Justice that became the “real, social left”. The social task of PiS was in many places hollow, unthought-out, frequently not on public interest, but party-like – which was best seen after how unfairly he was leaning towards above average support for this elder formation. Nevertheless, the "social return" remains a affirmative legacy of the government of Szydło – and to a lesser degree Morawiecki – something that distinguished the Law and Justice from the right fundamentalist market, rejecting any language of social solidarity in the name of social Darwinism.
It is very amazing that Nawrocki behaves, at least so far, in his run as if this social heritage of the Law and Justice Government did not be or as if he treated it as a shameful ballast. Yes, the "citizen candidate" sometimes postulates populist-social demands – e.g. completely impossible to realise from the Presidential Palace a promise to cut electricity prices. However, these are only single plays, not a thoughtful, upbuilding image of the run communication.
Instead, we object to the cadastral taxation or the invitation to Sławomir Mentzen to jointly reduce taxes. It can be expected that Nawrocki did not say the last word here, and that in bidding for an highly socially selfish liberal populism will race the Confederate candidate until May. With the image of PiS as a social right, there may not be much left after this bidding.
What remains of Lech Kaczyński's heritage?
Most consistently in pursuit of the Confederate electorate Nawrocki wins anti-Ukrainian moods. Not only does it thunder that "Ukrainians cannot live in Poland better than Poles" – whatever it means in practice, can the "citizen candidate" propose that, for example, they must give way to Poles in public transport? – but he besides accuses Ukraine of “ingratitude” and mistreatment of Poland. He besides announces that as president he will not agree to the entry of Ukraine into the European Union, until this 1 settles crucial matters for Poland with exhumations in Volyn at the head.
Nawrocki, racing Mentzen on who better politically manages the anti-Ukrainian moods actually increasing in Poland, at the same time throws the full policy of the Script after February 2022. due to the fact that if it is said that Ukraine is “ungrateful” and treats us badly, then we gotta draw the conclusion: Poland was naive, unconditionally helping Kiev, we had to apply much more transactional logic from the beginning.
The fact that the Law and Justice in 2022 did not go into a akin pseudorealist policy was possibly his top merit alongside social correction. PiS, by exposing Nawrocki and ordering him to race for anti-Ukrainianism – due to the fact that nobody seems to have the illusions that the "citizen candidate" chooses the subjects himself – acts as if he is incapable to defend his policy from this period, he submits to the "Ukrainian realist" attacks of the Confederates before they can truly resound.
By the way, there is something else going on here: the Law and Justice Office is completely distant from Lech Kaczyński's heritage in east politics. It was symbolized by the speech of the erstwhile president in Tbilisi, maintained in the traditions of Polish prometeism and an idealistic approach to global politics, reproving its value. Including the rights of tiny nations affected by the curse of neighbouring empires like Russian, about their right to choose their own alliances and to follow their own path.
One can criticise the naivety of this vision, but frankly, it is even more naive to enjoy the return of bare force as the only criterion shaping global policy by representatives of the state with specified modest force as Poland.
Nawrocks with their fueling anti-Ukrainian emotions, with the curing of historical disputes with Ukraine, a transactional, pseudorealist approach to politics, yet the fascination with Trump's force policy stands on anti-podes in reasoning about the abroad policy Kaczyński presented in Tbilisi. Today, the speech of the erstwhile president of Georgia only evokes Adrian Zandberg – and if it is not paradoxical, the candidate Together present is much closer to “the Kaczyński heritage” than Nawrocki.
This idealism, even if it led to frequently ineffective policies, is something that does not let to full measure the character of Lech Kaczyński negatively. As the Law and Justice could be defended as long as this organization blocked the complete endekisation of the Polish right and its shift to the positions of utmost marketplace fundamentalism and social selfishness. Nawrocki's run persistently – although rather impervious and inept, due to the fact that this candidate may not be able to do anything else – works to dismantle these last affirmative elements of the written political identity.
