Page 36 - bneMag Oct23

36 I Central Europe bne October 2023
Krzysztof Bosak, one of the Konfederacja leaders, is one of the most articulate politicians in Poland, with a talent for fast comebacks in live debates. / bne IntelliNews
Polish far-right parties could dictate next government
WTojciech Kosc in Warsaw
he Polish election on October 15 is not just about who crosses the finish line first or second. It is also about who comes in third.
And that may be the odd collection of far-right groups under the collective name of Konfederacja.
If that is the case, Konfederacja may end up being the party whose support for the winners or the runners-up – probably respectively the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) or the opposition’s Civic Coalition (KO) – will determine who the next prime minister is going to be.
Konfederacja – whose full name translates as Confederation Freedom and Independence – is a fairly loose group of far-right nationalists who overcame differences between its respective leaderships to put together a concerted effort to win representation at the 2019 election.
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The effort surprisingly worked out and the group scooped nearly 7% of the vote – 1.25mn individual votes – and 11 seats in the parliament.
Four years on, Konfederacja regularly tops 10% in the polls, giving it some 50 seats in the new parliament, give or take a few. That makes it a regular subject of speculation about its potential participation in the next government, speculation that the party fervently denies, nurturing its anti- establishment image.
Given its far-right stance, a coalition with PiS would appear to be the more obvious fit but party leaders say that Jaroslaw Kaczynski's radical rightwing party is an imposter.
“I hope that the Poles will finally open their eyes and see that PiS is no different from PO,” Slawomir Mentzen, one of the Konfederacja leaders, told the tabloid
newspaper Super Express in June.
Pressed if there was a scenario in which his party would form a government with either of the big parties, Mentzen said: “If either of them agrees to implement our programme, everything’s back on the table.”
Just joking
Unusually for a far-right party, Konfederacja’s programme is deregulation to the extreme, as well as the usual anti-EU stance and a drive to stop immigration.
Mentzen once said that if his party won power, it would liquidate personal and corporate taxation as well as ZUS, the state body managing Poles’ pensions. Pressed on those plans, he said later he had intended them as “a joke of sorts”.
Still, the party’s platform for the October election is largely getting rid