The recent results of the Left are disastrous and this impression will not be erased by small individual victories in cities where candidates of the Left achieved great results in the local elections. On a national scale, the Left achieved a historically poor result, despite being the co-governing party.
From a pragmatic point of view, betting on Cimoszewicz and Belka, old activists who have great recognition in the former SLD electorate, may attract this electorate, which is shrinking for natural reasons. At the same time, these candidacies do not differ much from those proposed by the Civic Coalition, which systematically and deliberately devours the leftist electorate. In this way, it forces the Left into ideological turmoil and organizational chaos, which even the toughest electorate cannot understand.
What characterized the former SLD was primarily its attitude to history and post-communist identity, in opposition to the post-Solidarity tradition. Today, this division is purely historical, and the Left has not been able to find an effective way to distinguish itself from the party of Donald Tusk, who regularly and effectively hunted left-wing politicians, taking away the arguments of these groups. Because if you can vote for the winning party of Tusk, who has left-wing politicians and progressive slogans on his wings, what can a party teetering on the electoral threshold provide left-wing voters?
Not these numbers with Tusk, leftist
The PO leader basically took over almost the entire ideological and moral agenda of the left-wing coalition partner. Even the war over abortion is no longer helping Włodzimierz Czarzasty’s party.
What accounted for SLD’s success and what today’s left wing doesn’t remember
Today’s leftist circles have forgotten what made them strong and distinctive in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century, i.e. their own message and identity. The former SLD was full of stars, although times were not better for the left than today – after all, the Polish People’s Republic went bankrupt, the system hated by Poles turned out to be ineffective, and the neoliberal trend was gaining momentum, leaving huge numbers of people outside the pale of social life. At that time, the left was balancing on many wings, having great tenors who satisfied the appetites of the electorate. Aleksander Kwaśniewski pushed forward, regardless of history, and Leszek Miller, on the contrary, remembered his roots, which also won him many supporters. Today, this historic dispute is no longer important, it no longer angers voters as it once did. Meanwhile, the party’s left is basically outside the main political discourse. At best, it becomes a talking point for anti-PiS, and usually before the elections.