Polish Left need to unite for October election

The recent elections to the European Parliament showed that there is potential for a fully-fledged Green-Left progressive political movement in Poland.

Two political parties, SLD (Union of Democratic Left) and Wiosna (Spring), both aligned to the EU’s Socialists & Democrats (S&D), managed together to get eight MEPs elected.

While two other parties, Razem (Together, in the GUE/NGL) and Zieloni (Greens, Greens/EFA), despite not returning any MEPs, were successful enough to raise their profile.

But these four parties appeared on three different lists in the ballot papers.

So while there is indeed potential, the Left is unnecessarily fragmented ahead of the crucial elections to the Polish parliament in October. At this point, the unification of the parties is the deciding question for the survival of the Polish Left.

Social democrats and green political parties in Poland do not have a favourable history.

The transformation after communism and the ensuing paradigm shift to get the economy into a hyper-growth kicked the Left out of the political mainstream, rather than contributing to harnessing support for them.