In this autumn’s Polish elections, Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw, and Lodz all chose pro-European, liberal-conservative, and left-wing parties. These urban centres opted for the opposition headed by the Civic Platform of Donald Tusk – who was just recently elected prime minister – resulting in its victory. At the same time, in rural areas, especially on small settlements, it was the nationalist-conservative ruling party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS, the Law and Justice Party, that emerged victorious.
The Western side
Historian and polonist (an expert in Polish studies) Miklós Mitrovits sees the reasons for this phenomenon in the much more conservative lifestyle of rural Poland, where the Catholic Church plays a strong role in everyday life, and the population is of course also more religious. At the same time, according to the main researcher of the Central European Research Institute of the National University of Public Service, the ‘500 Plus’ program had a lot more weight in these rural areas. The program in question provides families with an assistance of 500 zlotys per child, up to three children (1 Polish zloty is roughly equivalent to 85 Hungarian forints.) The measure lifted up many families from the brink of deep poverty, increasing local consumption and bringing life back to many small villages, which helped boost the popularity of PiS. The promise of 13th and 14th-month pensions played a similarly significant role in the rural areas dominated by small settlements.