The Left (Poland)


The Left is a left-wing to centre-left political alliance in Poland, founded to contest the 2019 parliamentary election. The alliance consists of the Democratic Left Alliance, Spring and Lewica Razem. It is also externally supported by several small left-wing parties including Your Movement, the Polish Socialist Party, Yes for Łódź, Urban Movement, and the Polish Communist Party. These parties stood candidates under the banner of Lewica, along with several independents. It is described as a big tent for the Polish left, with Lewica itself describing itself as a coalition based on egalitarianism, social justice and secularism.

Voter base

As Lewica is formed as a unification of the Polish left, it has attempted to diversify its platform and appeal to a broader range of voters, rather than relying only on the votes of former officials and civil servants during the PPR period, which had been and continues to be one of the Democratic Left Alliance's largest voting blocs. This attempt, however, was met with limited success by the fact that the coalition's pro-LGBT rights platform failed to appeal to working class and economically left-leaning Poles, which tend to favour a more socially conservative policy. At the same time, the more liberally-oriented city-dwelling population, which could favour the party's proposed socially progressive policies, found little appeal in the party's platform of economic interventionism.
Despite this, some sociologists deem that the unification of the parties could lead to an overall mobilization of leftist voters, which could now feel that their vote for the coalition wouldn't be wasted. In addition, the party's platform, which differs greatly from the platforms of the other major Polish political parties, has managed to find some support among disillusioned secular voters, which don't identify with any political force or even with the left, but instead desire "something new".
Ironically, the party also received a considerable boost in support among older voters after the ruling PiS party passed a "degradation law", which cut retirement pensions and disability benefits for thousands of former bureaucrats during the PPR period, whose main income was now directly threatened by the new government policy. This led to an expansion and consolidation of the otherwise shrinking of the Democratic Left Alliance's previously described voting bloc.

Ideology

The electoral program of the Left includes:

Electoral performance

Sejm

Senate

Presidential