Polish candidates must be tempted by the far right voters
Trzaskowski won only with a tight lead.
Warsaw, BRATISLAVA. For the Polish government coalition led by Donald Tusko, these are key Presidential elections. Getting to the Presidential Palace of Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski would mean that Tusk It can easier to enforce the promised reforms of the judiciary or the media for which Poland faced criticism from Brussels.
Sunday’s first round of elections, however, shows that a relatively clear favorite is waiting for a difficult way to win the electoral duel in two weeks.
Trzaskowski’s lead over the candidate of the Conservative Party Law and Justice (PIS) Karol Nawrocký is only a minimum – 31.3 percent against 29.5 percent of the votes.
Moreover, the first round of elections showed that in Poland a third political stream is formed, and the far right begins to achieve similar support as two main political forces in the country – PiS and Tusk’s civic platform.
It is precisely on the far right -wing candidates that Trzaskowski has a chance to win 1 June. The question is to whom more than four million of their voters will vote in the second round.
In the article you can read:
- Who are the candidates of the far right who ended up at the 3. and 4.
- What voters was able to reach out to Mentzen,
- How voters can reach the candidates of the main parties.
The radicals have grown
For years, Poland has been spoken in the case of the presidential election of « Duopol » – the second round has always advanced to the second round candidates of the main political blocks – the Conservative Party Law and Justice and the Liberal and Centrist civil platform.
However, the support of « Duopol » was never so low in the first round – less than 60 percent of the Poles voted. Up to 21 percent of Polish voters chose one of the two candidates coming from the inconsistent side of Confederacja.
While, five years ago, its leader Krzysztof Bosak won 6.8 percent in the first round, on Sunday the second leader of the Sławomir Mentzen had already supported 14.8 percent of voters. He said in 2019 that their voters do not want « Jews, homosexuals, abortions, taxes and the European Union » and will therefore vote for them.
At that time, another member of the Confederacje Grzegorz Braun, who had already been excluded from the party, and surprisingly finished fourth.
Braun is an openly anti -Semitic deputy who talks about the Jewish conspiracy, during the celebration of Hanuka, the Jewish candlestick extinguished the Parliament’s corridor and burned the European flag just a few days before the elections.
Mentzen manages to reach especially young Poles – in the age group 18 to 29 years won with a gain of 34.8 percent. He regularly criticized the left, European Union, help Ukraine and promised voters lower taxes or less bureaucracy. It was only harmed by proposals for charging universities or a complete ban on abortion.
Rzeczpospolita claimsthat Trzaskowski and Nawrocki have ignored young voters, and now they have to fight for their votes. « Young voters wanted to show the government a red card. High participation was the result of their anger. It benefited from it who included young people in their election messages, » the daily writes.
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To reach out to nationalists will be a problem
In front of the Trzaskowski and Nawrocký, there is now a difficult task to convince the young people to cast votes to them, or at least they would not vote for their opponent.
« We have to talk to everyone, the most important are arguments. I am glad that many young people have come to the polls, but it is a great challenge to convince them to vote, » Reuters After the first round of Trzaskowski.
He is in a more complex position – Mentzen and Braun’s voters are about 4.2 million, while candidates close to the government or left only a million votes.
Trzaskowski has therefore already appealed to left -wing voters with topics such as liberalization of abortion laws or the abolition of the church fund, which, for example, the repair of churches from state money.
Nawrocki again According to Gazeta Wyborcza He started the campaign by rejecting the adoption of the euro and the migration pact to tempt the voters of the Confederacje. They are naturally closer to Pis, but often their social policy is angry.
However, the same voters also need a ruling party candidate and wants to win them with slogans of economic liberalism and rejection of the broad social benefits that the government of law and justice has pushed through in recent years.
In addition, Trzaskowski must be able to balance between not angry left, but also lured the moderate voters of Mentzen.
Several commentators are already criticizing that Trzaskowski has tried to impress some voters with words of dangerous immigrants or restrictions on social benefits for Ukrainian refugees.
In the past, many politicians have been despised, pointed out by political scientist from the Warsaw University of SWPS Ben Stanley.
« It seems that we will have to add Rafał Trzaskowski to the prolonged list of centrist politicians who have hardly found that when you are trying to compete with the radical right in her questions, someone benefits, and not you, » he said.
