For more than 20 years, being a left-wing voter in Poland was not easy and pleasant. It required patience, self-denial, ability to endure disappointments and failures, to stay optimistic erstwhile everything encouraged to break hands. Last week – starting with the “ultimatum” of the Left Together addressed to the fresh Left and ending with an unfortunate initiative Members of Ms Paulina Matysiak and MP Horała – however, he was as hard for left-wing voters as Euro 2024 for football fans of the Polish national team.
How to put your hand between a polarizing mill
Let's start with the initiative of Matysiak, due to the fact that in the commentatory bubble it caused the biggest storm around the Left since this 1 announced an agreement with the Law and Justice Office on the KPO. Well, the messenger announced Thursday, that together with Marcin Horala, he is establishing the Social Movement “Yes to Development”. It has: "to bring together citizens, organisations and politicians of different options to support investments that are crucial to Poland's development", specified as "CPK, atomic power plants, port and army expansion".
To put it briefly and possibly violently, this initiative is simply terribly foolish from the point of view of the Left. Yes, a consensus on certain strategical improvement goals would be indicated in Polish politics, as would civilising political dispute. But first of all, what improvement goals we set and how we want to prosecute them should be the subject of debate as much as possible. The CPK is not the only consequence to the challenge of Polish development, which all forces should accept, as is the presumption that outside NATO there is no warrant for our security.
Secondly, the Social Movement "Yes for Development" does not build a consensus around improvement goals. The announcement of this initiative has so far intensified polarisation, alternatively of working for deescalation, in addition pushed the Left between the polarizing mill bulb, where it is crushed from both sides.
It's hard to wonder how it ends. Consensus around investments specified as the atom can be built bottom-up, at civilian society level. An initiative of this kind would make sense if its faces alongside Horala and Matysiak were economic, social, intellectual, union, politicians actually from across the spectrum. The social movement whose faces are a typical of the populist antiliberal right and a organization MP very powerfully tilted to the left of the centre of the Polish political scene at the start closes the way to most voters with more or little centre-right views. If Horala and Matysiak truly wanted to build a cross-party consensus, they should first make certain that for their movement they get a policy reaching this part of the electorate, which both the Law and the left-wing environment with superiority and aversion is described as "a smiling Poland".
Instead of persuading anyone to develop, atom, CPK, or army expansion, Share video of Horala and Matysiak launches alternatively old scripts: Together again with PiS. As if this possible did not delight Rafał Wosia and respective insignificant luminaries of the alt-left bubble, neither together nor the full Left side, aid akin reactions.
In consequence to the initiative of the MP, the Left club suspended her for 3 months in the rights of a member, and the Left authorities together announced a request for a disciplinary procedure to the organization court. As a result, the Left first got hit for “co-operation with the PiS” and then for “relenting to blackmail the libs”.
Is Matysiak inactive on the PiS list?
At the same time, the club and organization could not respond otherwise. For a large part of the Left electorate, a joint initiative with the policy of the Law and Justice will simply be a "failure". Especially for those left-wing groups of voters who have suffered peculiarly from the policy of the Law and Justice – like young women who have been restricted by the Court of Przyłębska by reproductive rights, or the LGBT+ community.
Matysiak claims she consulted on the emergence of the movement with the party. Left Senator Together Anna Górska In an interview with RMF, she presented it differently. Matysiak was to inform the board and the national council of her idea, but erstwhile she heard that he was bad, she said that he would give a final answer. Then the organization saw that the initiative was being implemented.
All of this – including the fact that these scenes are publically discussed in the media – is simply a political childish and amateur. A organization present on the Polish political scene for almost 10 years can truly require a small more seriousness.
At the same time, the Matysiak movement is logically based on the political tactics of the MP over the past months. The politician of the Left Together consistently built her position of a individual willing to cooperate with the right, including the 1 from the Law and the Confederation, “in improvement matters”, together with her attacking the policy of the Tusk Government in this respect, accepting invitations to identity writing media.
The left had nothing to gain from this activity. Repeating his postulates in the right-wing media, Matysiak strengthened the right-wing electors alternatively than dragging them to the left. Besides, the written, frequently radically right-wing mediate class, powerfully active in projects specified as CPK, is the last group of the PiS electorate that would be able to gain the Left.
Similarly, only its own environment gains from a joint association with a associate of the Law and Justice. The PiS thus shows that it is not a organization completely without coalition ability, Horala can transform himself from an ultra-traditional apparatusist into a ‘modernizer’, sharing on the occasion of the Coalition camp on October 15.
Matysiak's tactics made logical sense only assuming that the politician felt that the Left Together had no future and that 1 had to look for a place in another political task – at least ready to cooperate with the Law and Justice, if not starting with his letter. And I won't be amazed if I see her in a place like this in a fewer years. Even if that was not the plan, if a dispute over the initiative with Mr Horala pushes her off the left, which is likely, it could travel to very different political areas.
Get it together, quick.
The dispute over the messenger Matysiak explodes at a terrible minute for the Left. The formation saw dramatically mediocre results in the parliamentary and European elections. 2 polls from the last week of June give her support putting her barely above the threshold. Which, given that polls mostly overestimate support for the Left, should be an emergency signal.
The club besides has a dispute over the future of the Left. On Sunday after the National Council, the organization decided to start talks with fresh Left. Media wrote about the "ultimatum" issued to a larger partner. This is simply a very unfortunate phrase for Together, given that we are talking about 8 parliamentary persons, on whom the parliamentary majority does not depend.
If the Left asked me on Sunday what to do, I'd say, whatever you gotta decide, make up your head quickly. due to the fact that all decision – divorce, entry into the government, exit of the Left Together with a government coalition – seems better than remaining in the present state, erstwhile the biggest critics of the Left in the government are activists Together, and the most unpleasant things about Together have journalists to say to the left vice ministers. The club cannot function well while in government and in opposition to it, or at least not in the current way.
It's been almost a week, there's no decision, there's no argument on the fresh Left-Left line. The average voter understands so much from all of this that the left can only constantly argue, and as tiny as its seismic representation would be, it can share even more.
On the show Succession Logan Roy said at 1 point to his children “I love you, but you are not serious people.” More and more left-wing voters come to akin conclusions about their party. If this doesn't work out, in the next election, their next group won't vote or support the KO.
