A pre-election campaign for the highest office in the country is underway in Poland. Presidential elections will take place in May this year. The political situation on the banks of the Vistula River is currently such that in all electoral behaviours party identification and identity voting is most important.
We have seen it during EP and Sejm elections. The bipolar political dispute which is well known to Hungarians and which divides the society into two antagonistic camps causes that each party knows in advance who it will vote for long before the voting. One could say that such party identification is nothing new. Already Dan Nimmo, the American doyen of political science, claimed that party identification of the voter and the social-economic status are treated as long-term and non-electoral factors. However, the situation in Poland is special because we are starting to live a little like Catholics and Protestants in Ulster, who, living two streets apart from each other, often meet only in adulthood because they go to different schools, churches, live within their communities, go to different concerts and support different sports teams. It is starting to be exactly the same in Poland.
"Many voters vote for a candidate without knowing about particular matters of which they are an advocate, but only on the basis of the candidate's affiliation with some group. There will always be voters who cast their vote on the basis of a party affiliation. Parties sometimes function as a collection of loyal voters, sometimes people supporting one party during the election campaign block themselves from accepting any information contrary to their positive beliefs towards this party" - writes Dr Marek Mazur in "Political Marketing". And this is probably the clue to identity voting in Poland. And this is the key to understanding the upcoming presidential elections.
Despite the fact that there are several official candidates, the main game is played between the leaders of two hostile camps, that is between the incumbent President Andrzej Duda and the candidate of the Civic Platform Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
The presidential campaign of the second candidate is marred by two events that overshadow the presidential campaign, the first being the primaries in PO, the second being the election of the president inside the party itself. The primary elections weakened the Platform instead of strengthening it. The way the primary elections were conducted revealed an organizational weakness of the group, showed the fights of various coteries inside the party and the lack of strategic thinking. For a long time nothing actually happened after the primary elections were announced. It seems that the primaries were announced and everyone was still waiting for the final decision on the candidacy of Donald Tusk, the former head of the EC. Kidawa-Błońska declared that if Tusk decides to run for president, she will resign from the race. Tusk did not run and Kidawa-Błońska was left alone on the battlefield. In order to avoid a situation where there is the only candidate in the primary elections, Jacek Jaśkowiak, the president of Poznań, appeared as the second one. The man who was supposed to be Kidawa-Błońska's "hare" turned out to be better than her. Therefore, instead of the planned few debates between them, there was one, because Kidawa-Błońska was evidently weaker and she was to be the PO candidate. According to the party's staff, Platform's betting on the woman has the advantage that a very large segment of her electorate is made up of women, besides, the MPs of this group admit in unofficial conversations that it will be more difficult for President Andrzej Duda to attack a woman.
Another element weakening Kidawa-Błońska's position was her internal disputes within the Platform and the struggle for leadership, which ultimately ended with the election of Boris Budka as the new party chairman. It is clearly visible that the deputy Speaker of the Sejm did not have such a strong personality and charisma to rise above these factional fights for leadership. Bad emotions, uncertainty about the future of the party and the atmosphere of waiting for a new leader was a shadow on her candidacy. As a result, until now nobody in the opposition knows whether the leader is already Borys Budka or Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, or maybe Grzegorz Schetyna, who is resigning from the position of the party leader? The consequences are that the PO voter does not know if what Mrs Kidawa-Błonska or Boris Budka say is true? These doubts indicate that Mrs. Kidawa-Błońska is an independent person, dependent on internal fluctuations of her own group.
Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska's problem may also be the lack of communication with the voters and the lack of coherence between what she declares and how she reacts to political events. For example, while hosting a presidential candidate on Radio ZET, she said: "As we know, Jarosław Kaczyński does not care about the world, about Europe. He only cares about Poland". The President of Law and Justice as well as the whole party thanked her for this involuntary compliment. In Radio Single the Vice-Marshal said, 'Poles say very loudly and strongly that they do not want immigrants, they do not want foreigners. And we are talking about a million Poles who have settled and work in the UK. And let's not lie - the reason for Brexit was also the fact that Poles started working in Great Britain on such a massive scale". What did the author mean?
To sum up, the main strength of Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska is the brand of the party behind her, and the most important resource of this brand is anti-PiS, appealing to 'European values' and scaring with polexite. And in this arsenal of resources also moves the candidate of the largest opposition party.
The situation of the incumbent President Andrzej Duda is different. According to various polls appearing every few days, the president can count on support oscillating in the range of 44-47%, with 22-25% for Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska. Every president in Poland has high ratings while holding office. However, as Andrzej Duda said himself, he put his trust in an active presidency and kept his word. During the last term of office he visited all 314 districts in Poland. Together with his wife, he has been a patron of countless events, from the national reading to a very active and effective policy in relations with the United States. The President is also very much in line with the various celebrations commemorating World War II veterans and heroes of the fight against communist totalitarianism. Unlike his predecessor Bronisław Komorowski, President Duda moves freely in the salons of the European Union, the media do not send him, he speaks excellent English and is a doctor of law. Emphasising such "soft" competences is important because presidential elections are above all a struggle for images, "managing reputation" and raising the prestige of a candidate.
The main axis of Andrzej Duda's campaign will be to activate and mobilize his own electorate, which also includes Law and Justice voters. As the incumbent head of state he is already recognizable, there are no moral or political scandals behind him, that is why he will most probably bet on supporting and reminding advertising.
The election campaign of PSL candidate - Polish Coalition Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz looks very interesting. This young leader of the populars was the first to announce his running in the presidential election and received a kind of bonus in the form of interest and focus of media attention for a good few weeks.
On behalf of the Polish People’s Party (PSL), Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz formed a coalition with Paweł Kukiz and, as a common candidate, he put forward national consent, community, brotherhood and conciliation. "The president's mission must be to restore fraternity in Poland. Others say a lot about the end of the Polish-Polish war before the elections, while at the same time fuelling it on a daily basis. I believe that together we will build bridges of understanding over the walls of hatred," said the PSL candidate for president in Minsk Mazowiecki.
The declarations of national consent from the leader of a party that until recently fought hard against the government sound moderately convincing, but the strength of Kosiniak-Kamysz's strategy lies elsewhere. Unlike the PO, this politician, as the main goal of the presidential campaign, does not set himself a victory against the incumbent president. He, as the head of the small party, which in recent years has been turning its back on its voters, treats the start of the presidential election as a great excuse to rebuild the party's strength on the ground, both among voters and PSL activists. The polls now give him eight to ten percent of support. Kosiniak-Kamysz has announced that he will be "very active" in the presidential campaign and keeps his word. For months now, he has been travelling to the furthest corners of Poland and meets with voters traditionally assigned to the PSL, who, however, turned their backs on the party and started to vote for PiS. Reviewing the social media of PSL and its leader you can see daily reports from meetings with firefighters, village housewives, small businessmen, seniors, inhabitants of villages and smaller towns. It is typically a reminiscent and informative campaign calculated to strengthen the party and activate its own local activists calculated for a long march.
Also the Confederacy candidate Krzysztof Bosak from the National Movement treats the upcoming presidential elections as an excellent opportunity to make himself credible on the political scene and his own party. The Confederacy made its primary election on the American model, where the electorate chose the only one of the nine candidates. Among many commentators, this caused laughter, as out of eleven MPs in the Sejm, as many as nine were running in the primary elections. However, the marketing effect of this venture admits that the Confederation is right. First of all, the primary elections united this young party consisting of various right-wing groups internally, allowed to create mechanisms of mutual negotiations and mature organizationally, which is extremely important for them. They succeeded, the candidate was elected, and the Confederation did not split up. Secondly, successive party conventions in particular regions were an invaluable promotion of the party among voters. Krzysztof Bosak has four to six five and a half percent support in subsequent surveys.
The candidate of the Left, consisting of Wiosna, SLD and Razem party was Robert Biedroń, MEP. He is a well-known LGBT activist and former president of Slupsk. Biedroń is above all an ideological candidate, his partner Krzysztof Śmiszek is a member of the MPs. Robert Biedroń's candidacy was indicated by Włodzimierz Czarzasty, head of the post-communist SLD and the largest left-wing party sitting in the Sejm. There is an opinion among journalists that Czarzasty's candidacy of Biedroń is actually aimed at neutralizing the leader of the Spring and absorbing his party by the Alliance. Something is wrong, Biedroń, known for his harsh ideological statements and EP vote against Poland, has a huge negative electorate. Among the voters of the left, his candidacy also arouses a lot of controversy. Among various polls he can count on ten percent of votes.
The candidate who aroused the biggest surprise is a journalist and celebrity Szymon Hołownia. A man who describes himself as an "open Catholic" and who revolves in liberal circles decided to fight for the highest office in the state. Hołownia counts on activating the voters who have been passive so far. Although this candidate can count on about six percent of support in subsequent polls, influential luminaries of public life in Poland have become involved in his campaign. The head of the electoral staff of Szymon Hołownia is to be the former editor-in-chief of Newsweek Poland Michał Kobosko, and economic advisors Piotr Kuczyński, former chief analyst of Dom Inwestycyjny Xelion and general Mirosław Różańsk on national security. These are major names.
Although the upcoming presidential elections should not bring any unexpected surprises and Andrzej Duda is likely to become president again, the time of reshuffling and reconstructing will begin for the opposition. For the candidates who have little chance of winning, partial goals are more important than the race for the highest office in the country, i.e. strengthening the party, reminding Poles about themselves, promoting their program and vision of Poland. For all committees taking part in the current elections, post-election marketing will be as important as the ongoing campaign, i.e. the strategy of what to do with oneself when the battle dust settles and a new perspective of action appears.
Jakub Pacan
Autor jest dziennikarzem Tygodnika Solidarność