This is an unlikely alliance, and yet the only one possible. Three completely different streams of the Polish left and centre-left have united for an electoral coalition in the upcoming national election on October 13. With three male figures representing the coalition and smiling next to each other at press conferences, the arrangement was quickly nicknamed the ”Three Tenors” pact. Their names are: Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Robert Biedroń and Adrian Zandberg and the new formation’s name is ”Lewica”, ”The Left”.
The general public expresses a lot of enthusiasm for the pact, with polls giving Lewica between 9% and 15%, numbers nobody on the left has seen for years. Yet the coalition is being born in a lot of pain, as the three parties are often more of rivals than friends, their internal structures, political goals, organisational history and political views being radically different. A marriage of convenience more than anything else.
The biggest player in this arrangement is SLD, the Alliance of the Democratic Left – the Polish post-communist party, with the legacy which comes with it. Dodgy figures from the state apparatus of the previous system – check; provincial barons combining party politics with profitable businesses – check; a history of going full-on Blairite third way social democracy – check; major corruption scandals while in government – check; elderly men making fun of women’s and minority rights – check, and so on. Yet, over the last 14 years SLD has been through political purgatory. Unlike other former communist countries, they have not been in the government since 2005 and in the last election they didn’t even make it to the Parliament. The party leader Włodzimierz Czarzasty knows that for his party it is now or never and if winning seats in Parliament requires a change and a concession here and there, he seems ready for it.
