CITIZENS WILL BE WATCHING NEW GOVERNMENT CLOSELY Professor Andrzej Rychard, director of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), talks to Witold Żygulski.
T
he parliamentary elections on Oct. 15 most likely brought a change in Poland’s ruling team; after eight years in power, Law and Justice (PiS) may have received the most votes, but it did not win the parliamentary majority, which is now held by three opposition parties. What were the reasons behind this voter turnaround? The main reason was that the ruling party lost what had previously been its strength, namely its connection to
THE MECHANISM OF THE POLITICAL “THIRD WAY” WORKED IN FAVOR OF THE GROUPING: IT WAS VOTED FOR BY THOSE WHO WERE FED UP WITH THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO POLITICAL MAINSTREAMS 4
Autumn 2023
what people feel and what is important to them. Since 2015 [when PiS came into power], PiS has presented itself as a party that cares about the weak and vulnerable, but in recent months it started sending signals of contempt to the people. This has affected a very large part of Polish society. If PiS politicians are now saying that since the opposition has won, it must remember that PiS supporters are a significant part of society, this can be reversed: PiS should have remembered that there is an important part of society that cannot be addressed with contempt. It should not have constantly attacked and insulted its political opponents, [Civic Platform (PO) leader] Donald Tusk first and foremost and should not have consistently ignored various signals about its own scandals. In short: PiS ceased to be a party having very good contacts with the public. It was lulled to sleep by power. From this came further sins: violations of the rule of law, attacks on democratic institutions. PiS also misunderstood society, assuming that it was more conservative than it really was. Meanwhile, a modernization trend has been growing in Poland for many years, with society becoming more secular, more educated, more pro-European and, finally, more affluent. All this has caused PiS to drift further and further away from the people. This contempt coming from the world of politics and this distancing of politicians from society are, in my opin-
