The Polish Elections: Round One
What just happened?
Readers of this blog are doubtlessly aware already that yesterday’s election in Poland brought an enormous upset, with Andrzej Duda from the far-right “Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS) winning 34.7% of the vote, compared to 33.7% for the sitting President Bronisław Komorowski, from the centrist Civic Platform (Platform Obywatelska or PO). Even more surprising was the strong showing of Paweł Kukiz, a musician with little political experience and a strange ideological biography (more on that in a moment).
Up until very recently the debate among the political cognoscenti in Poland has been whether President Komorowski would win during the first round, or be forced into a run-off. The prospect that he might actually lose was hardly considered outside the election committees of those campaigning against him. In fact, even most of them were taking for granted (off the record) that the President would get a second term. Komorowski has enjoyed a stratospheric approval rating; in fact, a poll taken just last month by the respected Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS) showed that an amazing 73% considered his presidency to be either good (59%) or very good (14%). How can we possibly reconcile information like that with his dismal showing yesterday?
Today the Polish media is filled with discussions about what happened, with most commentators agreeing that the election is now wide open. The dominant theme in all the analysis is that the frustrated, marginalized, and excluded have made themselves heard, with parallels being drawn to recent growth among “outsider” parties from the left (Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece) or the right (the National Front in France). This conclusion is fair enough: in Poland as elsewhere in Europe, the old political structures have lost an enormous amount of legitimacy after so many years of policies (particularly austerity economic policies) that seem disconnected from the lives of ordinary people. The so-called “democracy deficit” in Europe is far more threatening than any budget deficits could ever be.
The strong showing for Paweł Kukiz is particularly significant in this regard. He became famous as a rock musician before jumping into politics in 2010 with his support for some far-right extremist groups. He spoke out against gay rights and endorsed the efforts of a neo-fascist organization (a term I use advisedly) called the National-Radical Camp (though he did eventually pull back from any official affiliation with that group). But his support in this year’s election did not come (only) from those extremists. His campaign mainly stressed one theme: an electoral reform that would replace today’s complicated proportional representation system with single-mandate districts. That’s hardly the red meat that typically mobilizes the far right. Exit-polls show that 27% of Kukiz supporters had voted for Civic Platform in the last parliamentary elections, and only 12% had voted for the radical right previously (though a whopping 24% said that they didn’t vote last time, mostly because they had been too young—40% of Kukiz voters were under 30 years of age).
Meanwhile, Andrzej Duda from PiS got 31% of his votes from people over the age of 60, and 34% from those with less than a secondary-school education. Looked at from the other direction, if the elections had been held just among those under 30, Kukiz would have gained 41% and Komorowski wouldn’t have even made it to the second round. If it had been held just among those 60 or over Duda and Komorowski would have been virtually tied with 44% each. Duda got more votes among those in their 40s and 50s as well, so wasn’t entirely confined to the elderly (in fact his greatest strength seems to have been among those between 50-59, and for personal reasons I refuse to classify that cohort as “elderly.”)
So Komorowski lost the young, and he lost those who are… (ahem) middle-aged and above. He lost those with a basic education, and he lost those who live in the countryside (decisively). He also lost the east, showing that the electoral geography of Poland hasn’t changed – ever.
But here comes the punch line: none of this may matter after the second round of voting on May 24. In the rush to interpret this surprise result in terms of who people voted for, many commentators are missing the most important part of this story: the people who didn’t vote at all.
As is clear from this chart, Poles don’t much like going to the polls (did you really expect me to avoid that pun?) Their participation rates are among the lowest in Europe, and yesterday’s vote had the lowest turnout for any presidential election. In other words, everything we say about the Polish electorate doesn’t come close to telling us the full story about the Polish population.
The pattern in Poland, like elsewhere in Europe and North America, is that those who vote for more extremist parties (left or right) are more likely to vote than those who support centrist parties. The real struggle isn’t Komorowski’s attempt to gain votes in the countryside, Duda’s struggle to win votes among the young, or any campaign for this or that demographic constituency. Rather, it’s all about turnout. The only elections that have brought significant victories for the far right have come in the very low-turnout parliamentary elections of 1991 and 2005. In both cases the very next election led to a backlash—not because voters suddenly turned away from the right, but because a bunch of non-voters were reminded that they really should vote if they don’t want Poland to be ruled by PiS. And surveys have been very consistent on that point: a huge majority of Poles (despite having virtually nothing else in common) share a strong desire to avoid a return to the 2005-2007 period when the Kaczyński twins ruled.
So yes, if we add up the votes for Duda and Kukiz from yesterday’s first-round voting, and assume that those are right-wing voters, then Duda is poised to win the second round. But it is very unlikely that the electorate in the second round will be the same one that came out for round one. Given the sense of inevitability surrounding Komorowski’s victory (until yesterday), lots of people simply didn’t bother to vote. As we can see from the chart above, there are almost always a lot of people who sit out the first round, assuming that the “real” election will come with the run-off. And a more careful breakdown of turnout results shows that turnout in the countryside was already reasonably high—the no-shows were the city folk. In no major metropolitan area did more than 40% of the population vote.
So what is going to happen when the second round comes on May 24? Civic Platform has prospered as the anybody-but-PiS party; will that be the case once again? Urban voters may not be enthusiastic for Komorowski or Civic Platform, but most of them definitely don’t want to see a PiS victory. Many of these voters are on the left, and their disengagement comes at least in part from a lack of any viable leftist candidate. The Komorowski campaign (which has been managed poorly so far) must spend the next few weeks reminding people that behind Andrzej Duda stands the actual leader of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński. I’m sure President Komorowski will make an effort to win votes for his candidacy, but that approach is not the key to his victory. Rather, he (or his proxies, because he needs to stay somewhat above the fray) should just repeat “Kaczyński, Kaczyński, Kaczyński, Kaczyński” for the rest of the month. If they do that, then I think we can count on the missing urban voters to show up next time, when it really matters.