The atmosphere in Warsaw last autumn was one of euphoria following the victory of the liberal coalition parties on October 15. Those were the first elections for Michal Grzebowski, a Sociology and Political Science student. Like hundreds of thousands of young people, he voted to evict Law and Justice (PiS) after eight years of ultra-conservative drift. Along with women, the new generations were key to Donald Tusk’s return as head of Government. This spring week, sitting with four other young people in the Resort, a bar in the capital, the first idea that Grzebowski verbalizes when evoking those elections six months later is disappointment.
Tusk’s center-right Civic Coalition (KO) arrived with 100 promises for the first 100 days of Government. Among the commitments were recovering democracy, the rule of law and a place in Europe. Also, return rights and freedoms such as abortion. New Left (Nowa Lewica), the center-left minority party of the Executive, offered a similar menu, somewhat more socially progressive. Meanwhile, Third Way, formed by the conservative agrarian party PSL and the Christian Democrat Polska 2050, led by a former television presenter with presidential aspirations, Szymon Holownia, promised another way of doing politics.
The 2023 legislative elections, which confirmed the trend of the 2020 presidential elections, represented a youth earthquake with 70.9% participation, recalls Radoslaw Marzecki, a youth expert at the Institute of Sociology of the University of the National Education Commission of Krakow. In the regional and local elections on April 7—this Sunday there is a second round for the mayoralties of almost 750 municipalities—abstention reached 61.4% for the age group of 18 to 29 years, compared to 48% overall, according to Ipsos exit polls. The data is comparable to previous regional elections, but has been interpreted as a warning to the new Government. Tusk took the hint and considered the demobilization “worrying,” especially that of young people.
The electoral results have reignited divisions between the minority partners of the coalition around the issue that was key to boosting the young and female vote in October: the legalization of abortion, after the Constitutional Court controlled by PiS turned Poland into the most restrictive country in the EU after Malta. While KO and Nowa Lewica propose legalizing the voluntary interruption of abortion in all cases until the 12th week, Third Way defends only returning to the situation prior to the Constitutional ruling.
Third Way believes that this issue has not been decisive in the elections and argues that the results consolidate them as a third force, while Nowa Lewica has fallen from 8.6% in October to 6.3%. Academician Andrzej Rychard responds energetically in his office at the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he directs the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology: “Of course it is about abortion. (…) Voters who preferred to stay at home are disappointed and it can be dangerous for KO”, he adds.
Beyond the differences in the four legislative proposals presented, what has also ended up infuriating many voters has been that Holownia, president of the Sejm (the lower house of Parliament), delayed their processing until last week, after the regional elections. Feminist activist Marta Lempart, founder of Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike), criticizes that “the Government has not complied with abortion or LGTBI rights, because of Christian fundamentalist partners,” as Third Way refers to. “It is “It is a betrayal that Tusk has not intervened against Holownia.” For Lempart, the abstention of young people in April shows that “people are fed up and angry.”
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
“Great frustration”
Julia Kelsz, vice president and co-creator of the Important Matters foundation, which promotes issues that interest young people, affirms that her generation “did not vote in October for a perfect government, but to defeat that of PiS.” “We knew them; “We couldn’t wait too long,” she reflects on the liberal coalition while sipping a decaffeinated cappuccino in a specialty cafe packed with large glasses, piercings and some colorful hair. She does not believe that the increase in abstention is directly related to abortion, like sociologist Marzecki, but rather to the local nature of these elections or the technical difficulties of voting remotely. The 24-year-old warns, however, that the issue “is a source of great frustration.” “It was supposed to be one of the first changes.”
The catalog of disappointments due to delays or failure to keep promises is extensive. For Grzebowski, 21, dressed in a cap and a colorful sweater, the most important thing is on the border with Belarus, where “hot returns continue and people continue to die in the forest.” Tusk’s anti-immigration speech, in this young man’s opinion, is like that of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Since the new Government took power, 1,770 expulsions, 25 disappearances and five deaths have been recorded on the country’s eastern border, according to the NGO alliance Grupa Granica.
Grzebowski voted for Nowa Lewika for its more progressive stance and its proposals on housing, one of the three issues that matter most to young people, along with the climate crisis and job stability. “But the left is too weak to achieve anything,” he says. Since the elections on the 7th, even more so. “The left is in crisis,” Rychard certifies. “For a sociologist it is surprising that in a country with many types of social inequalities we do not have a strong left.” Among Nowa Lewica’s problems, the academic points out the lack of renewal in the leadership, which is very masculinized, or in the economic proposals. He also associates it with lack of effectiveness. The Tusk Civic Coalition, traditionally more socially conservative, is also adopting some of its ideology. About 20% of Nowa Lewica voters voted KO in April.
Michal Tatol, who works supporting German companies, voted for Tusk’s party in October because he believed it was the only one capable of overthrowing PiS. “I chose the least bad,” says the 26-year-old, disenchanted because the Government does not fulfill its promise to protect the forests. Aleksandra Melaniuk, president of the SWPS university student association and intern at the Ministry of Justice, also voted for KO, although on “identitarian” issues she feels more left-wing. “I am disappointed but not surprised. I didn’t have high expectations,” she notes at the Resort. Milena Kubiczek, 21, gives a touch of optimism to the group: “I don’t know if the country has changed, but I see it more open to change.” “Things are happening, even if they may take time,” she says.
Equality marriage
Young Poles are more willing to reveal their left-wing identity than adults, Marzecki explains in an email exchange. “And they are more liberal than older people, but not all are equally liberal,” he warns. Dominik Saczko, 22, is a mix. He votes for PiS for its defense of national sovereignty against greater European integration, but boasts of being part of the 20% of its most liberal voters. He supports abortion and LGTBI rights, with limits.
Milosz Przepiorkowski, spokesperson for Lambda Warsaw, the oldest LGTBI rights defense organization in the country, explains at the NGO’s headquarters that although they fight for equal marriage, they assume that “it will not happen with this conservative Government.” “The goal is civil unions, with a model as similar as possible to marriage.” With the realism of someone who has been fighting for years in a deeply Catholic country, they are willing to put adoptions on hold for now.
In Warsaw it is not unusual to see displays of affection from young same-sex couples on the street. Nobody pays attention to their painted nails, exemplifies Przepiorkowski. But he has no doubt that in a town they could rebuke him. In the fiefdoms of PiS, a party with openly homophobic leaders, “the Church is not only the only meeting place, it is where life happens,” says the activist.
The country is becoming secularized, however, with a youthful drive. Between 1992 and 2022, the percentage of believing adults fell from 94% to 84% and that of those who go to mass regularly, from 70 to 42%, according to CBOS, the Polish sociological research center. Among young people aged 18 to 24, the percentages fall to 75.2% and 21.6%, respectively.
The new generations, especially in the cities, are beginning to live in another reality. But the message from many politicians is that Poland is not ready for certain things. “Polish society is ready for changes, all the research shows it,” says one of the country’s most renowned sociologists. “Secularization, modernization and liberalization are occurring to a greater extent than (the parties) assume,” Rychard insists.
“Sooner or later they have to address it, unless they don’t want this to be part of society,” says the sociologist, who emphasizes, for example, that Tusk’s opinion on homosexual marriage is not known. The “real danger” for society, he warns, is that young people stop using their voice and decide to stay on the sidelines of political life.
