Polls over the last year or so have consistently confirmed that Polish youth, especially males, have strongly right-wing sympathies, differentiating them from their Western counterparts. Already in 2023, the far right Konfederacija (Confederation) party received three times more votes in the 18-29 age bracket than among voters overall, and in the current presidential elections, their candidate Sławomir Mentzen was initially expected to strengthen this trend even further.

Some public opinion surveys even gave the far-right candidate the support of up to half of young people who intend to vote in the first round of presidential elections on 18 May. Not any more. His support has slipped following several political gaffes and rather unsuccessful debate performances. However, attacks from the opposite end of the political spectrum have also caused him trouble.

Two Anti-Establishment Stances
From the beginning of the campaign, Razem’s Adrian Zandberg has constantly criticised the Confederation leader and challenged him to one-on-one debates (Mentzen has not accepted the invitation). At first glance, this might have seemed pointless, as it was difficult to imagine voter shifts between the left-wing and far-right electorates. On the other hand, both candidates share a criticism of the establishment that resonates with young voters’ sentiments and opposition to the parties that have alternately governed Poland for many years, exchanging places at the “trough” for the past twenty years. But everything else divides them.

Confederation’s Mentzen captures the voice of protest and dissatisfaction, adding xenophobic demagoguery – the liberal Civic Platform and right-wing Law and Justice parties are supposedly jointly responsible for flooding Poland with immigrants, granting privileges to Ukrainians, and bringing in Muslims to take jobs away from hardworking Poles. This narrative is well-known from Western countries, where the far right spreads conspiracy theories about the “great replacement”, talks about the attack of “woke ideology”, etc. In Poland, it has found fertile ground despite its loose connection with reality.

The left side of politics also makes accusations towards the authorities, but of a different kind: Zandberg accuses them of starving the healthcare system, acting against workers, and deepening the housing crisis. The Razem chairman often thunders about politicians being in developers’ pockets and writing laws on behalf of their sponsors. With Razem, young people therefore face an option that is just as anti-government as the Confederation, but does not claim that young poles will somehow benefit from paying for their university studies and tolerating privileges for the wealthy, if only immigration is stopped. This makes some people previously inclined towards Confederation’s Mentzen more open to the Razem party’s proposals.

I’m Voting for Adrian, Na Na Na...
Equally important as the programme is the unconventional way of conveying it. In the current campaign, the Razem candidate has no problems with delivering his message. Although a Warsaw intellectual like Zandberg shouting populist slogans could easily be perceived as inauthentic or even making fools of voters, Zandberg avoids this trap – he speaks simply, but not simplistically. Even the right-wing media have noticed this. They explain their grudgingly positive assessment of the Razem leader’s campaign by his substantive approach and prioritisation of issues strategic for Poland’s future. As Roch Zygmunt admits in his piece for the Jagiellonian Club, it is “no longer possible to honestly demonstrate that the Razem Party only deals with [gender] pronouns”.

One also cannot overlook Zandberg’s rhetorical prowess. The Razem politician has always performed well in debates – winning most verbal skirmishes with counter-candidates (his “mopping the floor with Mentzen” tweet has already attracted more than 1 million views), whilst stubbornly sticking to his basic postulates: housing, nuclear energy, an end to cronyism, housing, increased healthcare spending... did I mention housing?

In this election, the Razem campaign staff has acted efficiently, flooding the party’s social media with impressive photo sessions and creative materials, from election posters inspired by earlier propaganda (“15-year plan”) to meditation sessions with Zandberg’s voice. On the party’s YouTube channel, one can also find weekly summaries by the presidential candidate and streams in which he tries his hand at popular computer games.

And then there is the grassroots support from Razem party sympathisers, who created memes with the “mighty Dane” – a several-metre-tall giant lurking in search of developers, confederates, and holding counter-candidates in his grasp (literally). In recent weeks, perhaps only the “empress” [former Democratic Left Alliance (SDL) MP and MEP Joanna] Senyszyn could compete with Zandberg in terms of virality, but she lacked comparable musical accompaniment. The best display of Razem internet users’ creativity is a series of songs, led by “Lumberjack President”, a remix of Gala Rizzatto’s “Freed from Desire”. To the rhythm of the turn-of-the-century hit come promises that “liberals face ploughing, elites are afraid”, and after Adrian’s victory (na na na...) there will be “industry and electricity (...) a healthy Poland and housing”.

The online activity of Razem supporters is so extensive that a few days ago, Anna-Maria Żukowska [of the Lewica (Left) Party] accused Zandberg of buying a package of bots, to the delight of entirely real Twitter keyboard warriors tormenting accounts of politicians from other parties with Zandberg memes. One can ridicule such a form of political activity, but polls suggest that it reflects changes in actual electoral support, especially among young people.

The Confederation-Razem duel dominates youth politics
It is no coincidence that Zandberg and Mentzen rallies bring crowds with an exceptionally low average age. According to CBOS polls, they should collectively gather over half the votes of the youngest voters – a survey from early April gave 44 per cent to Mentzen and about 22 per cent to the Razem chairman. A slightly later Research Partner poll reduced this lead (34 to 22 per cent), and in May, Atlas Intel gave Zandberg a minimal lead over the Confederation leader (25 to 23 per cent), with other candidates far behind. Each polling company distributes the proportions differently, but the common element remains the duo at the top.

It’s impossible to escape the association with a similar duopoly among older generations, where the actors are the liberal Civic Platform and the right wing Law and Justice parties. In a sense, we are therefore seeing the recreation of the classic political polarisation in younger electoral cohorts. Except that, among the young, the ideological spread is much wider. Votes will go not to parties originating from the same right-wing environment, as is the case in ’mainstream’ Polish politics, but to groups with diametrically opposed visions of Poland.

The message that liberals and conservatives are the same evil falls on fertile ground among young people tired of a duopoly whose beginnings reach further than their memory. It has been raised for a long time by the far right Confederation, and in the current campaign, leftist Razem has chosen a similar narrative. In this way, it tries to better reach people who are voting for the first time in presidential elections, do not have established political loyalty, but want to vote against the “establishment”.

One might attribute this fact to the “natural” radicalism of youth and assume that in a few years, current twenty-somethings will switch to the liberal-conservative part of the spectrum anyway. That will probably happen to some extent, but it would be a mistake to overly disregard young people’s sympathies. For years, the far right was ridiculed because of its strong support among “secondary schoolers” and teenagers. But today, thanks to the votes of twenty and thirty-somethings, it is preparing to take third place in the presidential race.

Perhaps the stakes for the left are not just winning a tiny slice of the votes, but also reversing this trend? Engaging voters disappointed with Polish politics and/or those who never vote? If Razem can attract more youth, even modest support on the scale of the entire electorate would have a chance to pay off in the future, though it’s worth remembering that in an ageing society, the voice of each subsequent generation will be weaker. Zandberg’s potential good result among the youngest voters should be received with moderate optimism – not only by supporters of the Razem party but by all those waiting for a progressive response to the increasing popularity of the Confederation.

Artur Troost is a PhD student at Warsaw University and writes for Krytyka Polityczna