The authors point out the fact that last
year’s parliamentary elections in Poland, probably for the third time (after
the 2015 and 2019 elections), demonstrated public demand for a relatively
speaking new «third force» in the systemic confrontation between the «Law and
Justice» (PiS) parties and «Civil Coalition» (KO).
However, the fact that the leader of a new
formation is entering the Polish political scene, capable of creating an
alternative to both the antagonism of the «Law and justice» (PiS–GK) and the «Polish
Peasant Party» (PSP) and the permanent transformations of the Polish left,
became obvious as a result of the presidential elections of 2020, when the
third place was unexpectedly won by the popular television presenter and
volunteer Shimon Holovnia.
Although in 2021–2022, the peak of Holovny’s
popularity passed, and at the start of last year’s parliamentary campaign, the
political situation in Poland seemed no longer so effective for the political
force of S. Holovny «Poland–2020». That is why, on April 27, 2023, PSP V. Kosiniak-Kamisha
and «Poland 2050» Sh. Golovny reached an understanding on joint
participation in the next parliamentary elections in the format of the «Third
Way» coalition.
For the first time in domestic political
and historical science, the work comprehensively analyzed the results of one of
the new strong actors of the Polish political scene – in the elections to the
Diet and the Senate on October 15, 2023.
The main focus is on the selection of
voivodships and individual electoral districts, where the candidates of the «Third
Way» achieved significant results, securing the new political force a confident
third place in last year’s elections to the National Assembly of the Republic
of Poland.
At the same time, the relatively
unsuccessful results of the election campaign to the Senate are indicated,
where, despite the candidacies agreed within the so-called Senatorial Pact for
all one hundred electoral districts, «Third Way» won only 11 mandates
(with 27 candidates).
The entry of the parties «Poland 2050» and
the Polish Peasant Party into the parliamentary-government coalition led by the
leader of the «Civic Platform» party and together with the «New Left» parties
initiated a new situation in modern Polish political practice, which, given the
incomplete six months of its existence, needs further study.
Regarding the Ukrainian context, it is
quite obvious that in the conditions of a systemic crisis in official relations
between Warsaw and Kyiv, the appearance of a new «third» force, given the dual
nature of its formation and functioning, unfortunately did not become a factor
that would work for their normalization in the conditions of large-scale
Russian aggression against Ukraine and the Kremlin’s hybrid operations against
Poland itself.
