For the average Konfederacja activist contemporary Poland is not what it seems.
Despite their country receiving near-constant praise from Western conservatives as a bastion of Christian Democracy, many Polish nationalists feel the country is culturally and politically slipping through their fingers. They see a geopolitical overdependence on the United States and a slow trickle of immigration opened up under the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) as laying the groundwork for future demographic change.
This week’s all-important parliamentary elections could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for conservative rule in Warsaw as a turbo-charged Europhile opposition led by Donald Tusks sets its sights on removing PiS from power.
While the international press has focused its attention on covering this progressive insurgency, surprisingly little time has been given to the populist Konfederacja party, which has channeled a generation of angry young men to become arguably the third-largest force in Polish politics in its four years of existence.
An alliance of traditional Catholics, free marketers, and hardline nationalists, Konfederacja premiered as an alliance of four right-wing parties shortly before the 2019 European elections and has struck a major chord with young Polish men with its stridently anti-establishment messaging, benefiting from a NATO-critical position on the Ukrainian war.
Something of an ideological fusion of the 2010s ‘4chan’ with doctrinaire Polish nationalism, Konfederacja rails against state overregulation and excessive taxes combined with a Poland-first approach to migration.
Despite a strong current of American libertarianism, the party has found a niche among Poles disgruntled with Warsaw’s backing of Kyiv and those who fear the suffocating influence of America on Warsaw’s foreign policy. As Konfederacja officials point out: Ukraine may not always have the same strategic interests as Poland.
At a pre-election rally for Konfederacja in Kraków town square Friday night, the youthfulness of the party faithful—which stands to win 10% of the vote share on Sunday—was palpable.
In comparison to an earlier gathering for the progressive, largely middle-aged and middle-class KO opposition at the same venue, Konfederacja activists were noticeably younger. Approximately 700 largely well-dressed men gathered to hear the party leadership lay into PiS and the trajectory of Poland.
Speakers ranged from pro-market libertarians to overt ethno-nationalists who, to a chorus of AC/DC and pyrotechnics, attacked the ‘old men’ in Polish politics in the form of PiS and KO for economically and demographically betraying the nation.
Konfederacja co-leader Sławomir Mentzen lamented a media cordon sanitaire around the party, which has all the hallmarks of a radical right-wing party with none of the neo-fascist baggage, as he implored the audience to end the PiS-KO duopoly governing Poland.
While Konfederacja has slumped from their previous high of 15% in the polls last month, the party could still play a kingmaker role should PiS fall short of the 230-seat majority needed to govern in the Polish Sejm.
Despite testament to the contrary, according to Konfederaca, PiS is leading Poland down the garden path through its institutional alliance with American liberalism and a form of myopic Russophobia as well as willful blindness to the early signs of non-European migration impacting Polish cities.
Organisationally, the party is a broad decentralised tent even by Polish standards, with members ranging from nationalist hardliners to anarcho-capitalists, with the party upholding a strict screening process to weed out the politically undesirable.
On Ukraine, the party is far from a Kremlin apologist, instead arguing that Poland has duties to itself and that a future Ukraine-German axis presents itself as much of a strategic threat as a revanchist Russia.
Typical of the Konfederacja activist base is Aleksander, a young professional involved with the party out of his wish to ensure Poland does not repeat the mistakes of the West.
I grew up in the West and want Poland to avoid making the same mistakes. I used to be sympathetic to PiS because I liked what they said, but I haven’t liked what they did—now I don’t even like what they say. Only Konfederacja will get Poland off its knees.
Commitment to the cause is paramount in a country where the ruling conservatives have a habit of buying off dissent through a covert network of nepotism, according to Aleksander, with the party so far doing well holding up a strong ideological line
Regarding the party’s youthfulness, Aleksander states that the over 50s in Poland are almost a lost cause for Konfederacja: easily bought off by bribes through the pension system as well as complacency that Poland will not go the way of Germany and France demographically.
If a political future exists, it exists in the energised young men of Polish politics, he believes.
On the European stage, Konfederacja belongs to a similar genre of party as Mi Hazánk Mozgalom in Hungary, acting as a political ginger group to keep already conservative governments to the right.
Should PiS’ dominance of Polish politics come to an end this week, Konfederacja will almost certainly have a future vanguardist role in the formation of a new Polish Right attracting patriots that were formerly loyal to the PiS political machine.
It was more than a generation ago that striking Polish shipyard workers laid the foundations for a future Polish revival through their will to overcome the Soviet menace. Today, future formulations by Polish patriots could well be being forged on the populist fringes of the Polish Right.
