At the beginning of February this year, PSL President Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Polska 2050 Movement President Szymon Hołownia announced that they would appoint a joint team of experts to draw up a list of “common problems to be dealt with” by the future government within the first 100 days, but also a list of matters to be dealt with within 4 years, ie the entire term of office.
A breath of fresh air in politics?
It then became clear that both leaders would refuse the leader of the PO, Donald Tusk, to draw up a “joint list” in the parliamentary elections and would rather decide that they would participate together in these elections. At the end of April, Kosiniak-Kamysz and Hołownia announced such a decision at a joint press conference, saying, among other things, that this joint move, unlike the dispute between PiS and PO, would be a kind of “fresh” decision. breeze” in Polish politics. Even then, Internet users pointed out in numerous comments the numerous program differences between the two parties, moreover, they very often noticed that PSL, which took part in most government coalitions after 1989, could not bring a “fresh wind” into politics are .
In early May, Kosiniak-Kamysz and Hołownia also announced that the election commission would be called “The Third Way – Poland 2050 and PSL”, and agreed on common positions and comments on current events on the political scene. room. This was the case, for example, with the increase of child benefits under the “Family 500 plus” program from PLN 500 to PLN 800, recently announced by President Jarosław Kaczyński. Kosiniak-Kamysz and Hołownia presented a common position on this issue, that the increase of the benefit “yes”, but only for families whose parents work, in case of non-working parent, the benefit would remain at the current amount . There is no doubt that such a position was imposed on PSL by Hołownia, because such a solution, apart from being unconstitutional, affects the remnants of this party’s electorate in the rural environment, where a large part of the women are committed to raising children, in the absence of nurseries, and often and places in kindergartens.
More and more differences
But there is much more to these misadventures between the two groups and everything indicates that in the next 5 months separating us from the date of the elections they will be revealed more and more. Some are even of a fundamental nature and will therefore make it difficult not only to draw up a common electoral program but also to take common positions on the program proposals of competing political parties. Let us remind you that Poland 2050 is meant to be a “lifeboat” for PO members, which clearly started to weaken after Tusk’s departure to EU policy, especially when it was led by its chairman Borys Budka. It is therefore a party of a liberal nature, which is reflected in the composition of advisers that Szymon Hołownia, and in fact his main adviser Michał Kobosko, decided to invite to cooperate. PSL is, in theory at least, an anti-liberal party, which, after bad experiences of joint governance with the PO, would rather not be willing to lend its hand to support the liberal ideas of Poland 2050.
Let us also recall that Hołownia and its economic advisers long ago announced the need for Poland to join the Eurozone, although there is increasing hard data that if we did, the pace of our country’s development , and consequently the catching up with the most developed countries of Western Europe, would be significantly reduced, while PSL is against joining the Eurozone.
There are also major differences between the two sides, there are also issues related to the development and modernization of the Polish army, PSL supports the activities of the Law and Justice government in this regard, the Hołownia group, the main of which adviser retired general Mirosław is Różański not only disputes these changes, but announces that they are “reversal” once they come to power.
Hołownia is in favor of partnerships and funding of the in vitro method from budgetary resources. PSL, after the disastrous experience of participating in the European coalition (called the “Rainbow Coalition”) in the elections to the European Parliament, seems to be against such solutions.
Can you cross the electoral threshold?
These and other differences between the PSL and the Hołownia movement are increasingly being noticed by current and potential voters of both parties, and after the initial poll fireworks, in which the joint list had 15 percent of the vote. – 16 percent support, after just a few weeks these polls dropped to 11 percent. – 12 percent
If both parties fail to stop this downward trend during the sharp election campaign, and the viewing figures approach 10 percent, the question is whether the joint list of PSL and Polska 2050 guarantees above 8 percent. electoral threshold and more and more voters will wonder if it is worth wasting your vote?
After all, such a situation was experienced by the AWS list in 2001, and some years later in 2015 by the United Left list, so it is not so unlikely in Polish politics. So it may turn out that in the case of PSL and the Hołownia movement, opposites need not attract each other, on the contrary, they even repel existing voters.
Source: wPolityce