What unites the opposition is merely 'anti-PiS'. There is no common programme and demagoguery alone is not enough

The opposition is aware that „anti-PiS” is not sufficient to win elections. It is a strategy that deters part of the electorate expecting to see proposals, programmes, concrete solutions to specific economic or safety challenges. Solutions that for the project of a common list were and are non-existent. All there is is demagogy.

The upcoming elections are a battle of ‘good versus evil’ depending on who is voting for whom, aimed at mobilising the electorate. The stakes are high, of course, because it is the governing of the country in the situation of the greatest challenge of the last decades. „How to wisely threaten with PiS and not to overheat”. - Jakub Majmurek advises in this regard in Krytyka Polityczna. He admits that in a political battle it is mainly emotions that are decisive, rather than rational choices and proposals made by politicians.

And since there is war and related economic turmoil, the decisive emotions will be those of anxiety caused, for example, by fear of a drop in living standards, or simply poverty; fear of war and an uncertain international situation. However, this is not enough - he points out. He also admits that the opposition unified on one list will have to force itself into a Manichean scheme of confronting evil, which a large part of the electorate does not buy, considering it to be silly demagoguery.

This anti-PiS emotion is at the same time a resource as well as a challenge for the democratic opposition party. It is a resource because it mobilises and unites its voters ranging from the PSL and Poland 2050 to the Left. It is a challenge because, by relying solely on using PiS as a threat, the opposition can easily overheat the topic even to the point where the fear of PiS not only fails to mobilise its voters to go to the polls in large numbers, but may even paralyse them into a sense of hopelessness. In other words, one of the leading questions the opposition has to answer this year is „how to use PiS as a threat and do it wisely?”

— a columnist for Krytyka Polityczna points out.

It is interesting to see that the opposition is aware that for many years it has been conducting only a demagogic campaign aimed at destabilisation. There is no coherent programme and vision for the state, no ideas, and no solutions. The strategy is solely a reaction to PiS, the government and ‘Kaczyński’. It is another year based on the principle „the worse the better”. In an interview with PAP, President Jarosław Kaczyński pointed out that the opposition had hoped that after the increase in VAT rates, fuel prices would rise, which would give the opportunity to attack the government. However, this did not happen, and the whole plan of the opposition failed.

Apparently, there is an awareness in opposition circles that a narrative focusing on the defence of democracy is not enough, as there are many voters who are completely indifferent to it. ‘It is perfectly possible to use the Law and Justice party to scare people, of course - explains Majmurek - but it is also necessary to offer something concrete and address various, often very down-to-earth problems. Such solutions are at most in the hands of individual parties, which will have to present them in a separate battle for the same electorate. And this is a bit of a problem.

What is needed is the capacity to govern, to react to a dynamically changing situation and to have a vision for the country. And what? The united opposition has never had it, does not have it and will not have it, because its common ground is only demagoguery and provoking a social revolt in a situation of war across the eastern border.

Tłum. K.J.