“With the help of different hunting dogs, the KO tries to herd the smaller parties into one pen like sheep. This is poorly received by society and seen as an electoral squabble. People become discouraged, there is more aggression between individual opposition groups. This is really unhealthy, says Jacek Bury, Polish Senator 2050, in an interview with wPolityce.pl.
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wPolityce.pl: What do you think is the result of the current poll, which shows that support for PiS is slightly increasing and for opposition parties is decreasing, apart from Konfederacja, which is also increasing?
Jack Bury: You ask about difficult things. I’m surprised that PiS has so little support regarding what’s happening in the country. All crises and wars always consolidate society around the power camp. I would have expected PiS to have over 40 percent support now, and it still doesn’t have that much.
But the war in Ukraine also caused several economic turbulences in the world, including in Poland, which in turn hurt those in power.
These economic turbulences are largely at the behest of those in power. They didn’t take money from KPO, they fed inflation almost three times higher than in the Eurozone [inflacja w strefie euro w marcu wyniosła 6,9 proc. rdr., a w Polsce 16,2 proc.]. Glory to PiS, it’s their credit. It is easy to blame war for the bad economic situation, but other countries are handling it much better. Inflation in Poland has recently fallen slightly, but is still very high.
You mention the government’s problems, but then I’ll come back to the first question – then why is the current poll in favor of PiS?
This has something to do with the fact that the opposition is too focused on itself, I mean primarily the KO, which aims to be the main in the opposition and drive other parties to its hometown, rather than to make an offer to the Poles. It is true that the KO slowly started to move towards presenting its proposals, although my impression is that it will be an auction for populism – Tusk proposes “grandmother’s”, PiS will soon give 700+ and it will last. Instead of thinking about how the Polish economy can develop, we will take from some to give to others and lend the land. Populism in this campaign is sure to grow. On the other hand, support for the Confederacy is growing because it shows only half of its face. This shows the face of economic liberals, there is a bit of freshness – that’s how Mentzen positions themselves, but they hid Braun, Bosak, Korwin-Mikke. Young people think the Confederacy are economic liberals and libertarians, and they have brown shirts and Lugers under their coats. When the public sees who we’re dealing with, support for them may decline.
What about legacies for PSL and Poland 2050? PSL has been balancing on the edge of the electoral threshold in the polls for years, and then always exceeds it. But Poland 2050 enjoyed double-digit support for a long time, and now it is, for example, in the latest poll of Social Changes – 7 percent.
Surveys are conducted by companies that have money for them and unfortunately in Polish reality they are often very biased. Nevertheless, the downward trend of Poland 2050 was visible, now something is starting to recover. I think it’s due to a lack of communication. Not everyone understands that we are not joining the PSL in one party, but that it is an electoral alliance. We talk about what we have in common, for example the approach to energy transformation, of education, we have a similar approach to a number of economic issues. There are also things that divide us and we should be aware of that. We will not be one organization, but two different ones that want to pursue common goals after the elections.
Isn’t it true that this kind of series about whether PSL and Poland 2050 will finally go to the elections together or not hurts you?
I think so. In journal politics, the lack of a clear, unambiguous decision is detrimental. On the other hand, sometimes you have to talk to each other in order to achieve something good. We are brave enough to admit talking to PSL, these conversations are often difficult, but we look for a common denominator. This is responsible politics.
If the PSL block started with Poland 2050, in what formula? In the form of a coalition of parties, so the need to overcome the increased electoral threshold of 8 percent?
Yes, most likely we will go as two parties, but one committee. No final decision has been made yet, so wait and see.
But if it ends up being such a coalition committee, then there is a reasonable risk that you will not cross the electoral threshold, as was the case with the Left in 2015.
Then PiS would be very happy, because it could easily have an independent majority again.
So that’s it.
I think as a coalition we would get more than 8 percent. to vote. Support for us is relatively stable, there are many reasonable people in Poland. We have plenty of time before the elections to present our ideas for Poland.
There is speculation in the media about a possible face-swap of the KO campaign, as well as the candidate for Prime Minister of this party – Donald Tusk, would be replaced by Rafał Trzaskowski. An Ipsos survey was recently published for OKO.press and TOK FM, showing that Prime Minister Trzaskowski’s option is more popular than Donald Tusk’s option among all opposition voters. What is your opinion on this matter?
It is certain that Trzaskowski is seen better than Donald Tusk by all opposition voters. However, we have already dealt with these types of moves, such as a replacement of a candidate, during the last presidential election. There was a one-on-one plebiscite and, as we know, Andrzej Duda won. Therefore, such a replacement might help the opposition a bit, but in my opinion it would not be crucial to achieving electoral success.
Returning to the issue of one list – do you think this issue should be closed, as it is one of the reasons for the drop in the opposition party polls?
Naturally. With the help of different hunting dogs, the KO tries to herd the smaller parties into one pen like sheep. This is poorly received by society and seen as an electoral squabble. People become discouraged, there is more aggression between individual opposition groups. It’s really unhealthy. Poland 2050 is not fighting for power for the pleasure of governing, but we want to present the Poles with concrete, positive proposals and solutions. There will be no diversity of these proposals if there is a single list endorsed by Donald Tusk. Such a situation would make it much easier for PiS to win the election because it will be much easier for them to campaign, and moreover many people who would like to vote for us, PSL or the left declare that if one list with KO as leader, they don’t go to elections. We really don’t want that.
Adam Stankiewicz spoke
Source: wPolityce