The first political vacation started in 2020. The parliament is not sitting, there is no electoral campaign, until September all participants of political life can rest. However, the Left should usage this time not only for remainder and regeneration before the fresh political season, which will soon, most likely shortly after its vacation, enter the presidential pre-campaign mode, but besides to answer any crucial questions, crucial to its strategy in the coming years. They all revolve around 2 problems: the future of the Left in government and the future of its coalition club, an alliance between the co-founding government of the fresh Left and the remaining Left.
What'd you get?
The summertime break, ending the political season, which began with the fall run in 2023, besides prompts questions about what the Lefties managed to bring in during the first 8 months of government.
Certainly the easiest thing to say was that although the Law and Justice Office lost its power in December 2023, nothing has moved in Poland since then erstwhile it comes to women's reproductive rights. The state of law introduced by the judgement of the Court of Malta in the autumn of 2020 is inactive in force. Of course, it is hard to blame the Left for this state of affairs – its Members and Members have done everything possible to vote at least before the vacation depenalisation of abortion aid. However, seismic arithmetic is what it is, in this Sejm, there is simply no majority to vote on civilised solutions to women's rights, a standard in practically all the countries of the European Union.
However, as you can see from the investigation of emotions in society, this situation is frustrated especially by the electorate of the Left, transforming itself into demobilization, visible in local and European elections. Voters, and especially electoral young people, for whom the issue of women's rights was 1 of the key issues for mobilization at the urns in October, may now feel disappointed and ask themselves why, in fact, the Left persists in the government, since it is incapable to force a substance so crucial to itself in the Sejm.
So far, no tangible change has taken place in 2 another key fields for the Left: partnerships and support for cheap, public construction for rental. Here, however, it can be said that work is ongoing and that there is simply a chance that after vacation, it will be successful. Although after what happened around the depenalization bill, no 1 would be amazed if the PSL would only be able to agree to specified a truncated version of the Association Act that it would be hard to accept for the Left and her electorate.
Out of the big, most bearable left-wing promises, only increases for academics have been achieved – increases for the remaining part of the budget are unfortunately low on the left-wing political account – which are "serviced" by a comparatively tiny group of voters, and widow’s pension. This second program will scope a much wider scope of beneficiaries and will aid many people whose material situation has become very hard after losing their spouse. The widow's pension outside the social sense besides has a political dimension: as may be assumed, the Left wishes to scope for the elder electorate, erstwhile 1 of the pillars of her support, and in the realities of an ageing society applicable to each political party.
At the same time, there are respective problems with widow’s pension. For any of them has already paid attention to our publications Katarzyna Przyborska. The wider political problem with this project, however, is that the Left, by not delivering much to young voters, a group among which it recorded the best results in 2023, launches a very generous benefit for the oldest who have not voted for it and there is no warrant that the widow's pension will vote. In addition, all of this happens in a situation where the elder electorate was exceptionally cared for by the PiS governments, the best example of which is the thirteenth and fourteenth retirement.
Young people have been locked and housed by the erstwhile government and denied the chance of average discipline and improvement to defend society from a illness that is mainly dangerous to older people. I'm not saying you should have let the virus go, and you shouldn't worry about the seniors, but you should be aware of how the cost of fighting the coronavirus went down in generations. erstwhile young people go to college today, a barrier to education in a dream place frequently turns out to be a deficiency of dormitories and a lease price in large cities. erstwhile they start working after education, they frequently find that even unchangeable work with a nominally decent wage does not give creditworthiness to buy a average flat in a large city.
However, the social construction program has not materialized so far, yet another benefit for seniors has materialised – it is hard to be amazed if this situation creates a belief in the younger Poles that the Polish welfare state is unfairly tilted towards older people and ignores the needs of those entering adult life on which the future of society depends. Long-term it would not be good for the Left to associate itself with this perceived as an unjust state – the transportation of widow's pension without realizing any large promise crucial to younger voters can unfortunately fix specified association.
Socialism is easier than human rights
Looking at the first 8 months of operation of the Left in the government coalition, you can see that it has and will have a large problem pushing through its worldview agenda, key demands on human rights. Despite the change of the government's layout and the reflection of the political pendulum from the right wall, where it went under specified figures as Przemysław Czarnek, the parliamentary majority of the time remains very conservative, more than the Polish society. And it is not known what tools the Left could engage in to change that – possibly beyond the large street mobilizations like those following the conviction of the Przyłębska Court.
The Left did a small better with social or pro-working postulates. Although the biggest test here will be the transportation of the social construction program – as long as the Civic Coalition or even the electorate against the 3rd Way Confederation realize that in order not to give the field to the perceived as the "social" PiS, the Coalition on October 15 must offer its social, a large part of it lies in the schemes of more than a decade ago, in the belief that housing should be built by developers, not self-governments, and the state can at most pay people for credit. A real change in the doctrine of the state in the approach to the housing problem will so be a real challenge for the Left, and if it succeeds, it will become her top accomplishment in the current government.
Also in the social and labour area, any of the Left's projects were discarded, and in a politically painful way. This was the case, for example, with the Act on Signallers, specifically with provisions granting protection to persons reporting violations of labour law. They were accepted in the government task – as Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk presented as a large success of the Left – then through the Sejm. However, they were denied in the legislature and the Sejm supported the changes to the advanced Chamber. erstwhile the same head of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy announced ambitious minimum wage increases, they were immediately publically corrected by Donald Tusk, who assured that the minimum wage would grow as much as required by the law, but not peculiarly more.
Why are we in the government?
Minister Dziemianowicz-Bąk of all the politicians and politicians of the Left present in the government best handles communication. She is the only 1 who keeps telling what her ministry is doing, what has already been achieved, what work is going on, what long-term ambitions are – e.g. solutions to reduce working time. The another representatives of the Left in the government are far worse with akin communication: Minister Dariusz Wieczorek in the Ministry of Science, Minister for Equality Katarzyna Kotula, and especially Deputy Prime Minister for Digitization Krzysztof Gawkowski.
I think the left is starting to see this problem due to the fact that – like Wednesday reported Virtual Poland – after the vacation a "great convention" is planned, during which it is to boast its successes. A convention summarizing the government's Left's achievements won't hurt, but formation needs an thought to communicate what it actually does.
Today, the fresh Left lacks a clear communicative explaining to its supporters why it is actually in government and what it plans to accomplish by participating in power. Last October, this consequence seemed rather obvious: Left enters the government to decision distant from the power of the Law and prevent Poland from moving further towards a hybrid “democracy”, pushing us to the sidelines of the European Union and creating an expanding threat to the rights of groups specified as LGBT+ and women.
The more time it takes, the little apparent this answer will be – especially if the PiS candidate fails to win the presidential election in spring. So the Left must first answer itself the question of what is its strategical goal of governance, and then come up with a communicative that allows voters to explain it.
The answer to the question of the intent of the government depends on the answers to the next, on which the Left must reflect in the coming weeks: what demands it is able to make on the altar of coalition unity, what are the red lines in the girdering of centre-right policies, which solutions, which do not correspond to left-wing voters, can be agreed to carry out these key ones for the Left. For example, can we support Credit 0% in exchange for government support for a wide-ranging social building support programme? Finally, 1 must besides face the question: erstwhile can 1 endanger to leave the coalition table or even leave it? Today, specified a movement would inactive be incomprehensible to most Left electorate, but for the most ideologically expressive and over-represented in social media part of it. But the presidential elections won by the candidate of the coalition – which, as many points out, is simply a more likely script – as well as time, will change political dynamics and the Left should prepare for this.
Together, but how?
It is besides essential to consider the script for presidential elections. How administration The “Rzeczpospolita”, the PiS can announce its candidate in October, which means that the precampation will start truly early and will be highly long. In the presidential election, personalization and recognition of a peculiar person, able to accomplish a good result, are crucial. This will be hard for the Left, especially if the KO will exhibit Rafał Trzaskowski, who will be able to choice up all left-wing candidate of many voters.
Before the Left makes decisions on personalities, however, it must consider what niche I will manage in these presidential elections and how to present in them, what communicative I will present about myself to Poles and Poles. Is it more about human rights or social affairs, or can it effort to connect both issues? How to play the run generationally? It seems apparent for now only that the candidate should be a woman, but the candidate of the Left, whoever becomes her, will request a wider communicative than that she represents the voice of women and wants to fight for their rights.
This autumn's convention is besides to be a manifestation of unity in the left-wing club – it seems that at least for now there will be no divorce on the Left. At least until the presidential election, this is simply a sensible decision for both parties.
At the same time, it is essential to establish certain shore conditions for cooperation in a club that is partially in and out of government. For in the long run, it cannot function as in fresh weeks before the summertime break – in a state of constant conflict, completely incomprehensible to voters.
While the answer to the question “why is fresh Left in government?” is strategically crucial for the full Left, the improvement of cooperation rules in a coalition club is simply a key tactical challenge for the upcoming political season. If in August there are no rules, the club will proceed to break, dragging the full formation down.
