"They feel an expanding political cause". The consequence of the second round

Luke Rogojsz, Interia: In the second circular all power in the hands of young people?

Prof. Adam Leszczyński, University of SWPS: – I'd be careful with that. Finally, Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki base their electoral success primarily on older age groups.

However, young people have the top reserve.

– Therefore, young people will decide whether to go to the urns in the second round. As for the main bastions of support: the PiS candidate has the largest inactive among seniors, and the Citizen Coalition candidate among 40 and 50-year-olds. Young people in the first circular have not ostentatically voted for them or voted to a tiny extent.

They chose Sławomir Mentzen (36.1%), and Adrian Zandberg (19.7). Now, if they go to the election, they must find themselves in the long and grey beard of the po-PiS duople.

– Key question: how many young people will turn out to be susceptible to negative choices and vote against the imagination of Poland presented by 1 of the candidates in the second round. Young people are not now encouraged to vote positively in the electoral overtime. Rather, both parties effort to convince them that the second candidate will be a harmful option for them and for Poland. In fact, there was small affirmative message in this run at all, both to young people and all. The promises made to young people were fewer and unconvincing.

What do you mean?

– If a presidential candidate promises to invest in municipal construction or lower taxes, it is hard to take this seriously. They're not the president's prerogatives.

Unless this president cooperates closely with the government and has a measurable translation.

– Yes, only the experience so far does not seem optimistic. president Andrzej Duda promised to solve the problem of franc loans to Poles and nothing came of it. Not only due to the fact that he had problem preparing the bill, but besides due to the fact that he could not build support for this initiative in his own political camp.

You said no of the 2 candidates had an interesting and credible offer for young people. It is interesting that Trzaskowski has been investing heavy in Campus Poland for years and in dialog with young people. In the meantime, before the second round, his staff members told me that they had the most work to do with young people and among 40-year-olds.

– The deficiency of an extended offer for young people is 1 thing, but Trzaskowski paid a very advanced price among young people for the advanced unpopularity of Donald Tusk's government.

Young people see it as “ViceTusk”?

– I do not know if they identify him as Tuski, but he is undoubtedly a prominent figure in the camp of power. There's no escape. In turn, young people are dissatisfied with the direction in which Poland is heading, and they are besides dissatisfied – we know this from various social investigation – with the offer Poland has for them. Or, rather, deficiency of it.

Many of them said after the first circular that they felt left out. Politicians and the state are not curious in their needs, they have no offer. That is why they want to “turn over the table”. And by anyone, the sooner, the better.

– It's a natural tendency among young people. Let us besides remember that the Platform and the Law and Justice regulation Poland alternately for a very long time. This year is the 20th anniversary of the PO-PiS. By comparison, in the 20th century the longest was the regulation of Władysław Gomulka, but it lasted “only” 14 years (1956-70). Even the regulation of sanitation lasted little (1926-39).

The deficiency of an extended offer for young people is 1 thing, but Trzaskowski paid a very advanced price among young people for the advanced unpopularity of Donald Tusk's government

Today's youth knows no another Poland than Polish PO-PiS.

– That's why they object to both sides. They say we want something else. This “something else” is expressed in the vote for Mentzen and Zandberg.

Hard right or hard left. There's no political center among young people? Trzaskowski received only 12,2 from them in the first round, and Nawrocki received 10.5 percent of the vote.

– If young people are asked about their values and what they are attached to, they show the key democratic values: freedom of speech, individual freedom, the right to decide about themselves. In this respect, I am not afraid of any undemocratic twist on their part. However, they can vote for a populist who will lie to them, pretending that these values are weapons.

The PiS and the Platform should, however, fear due to the fact that they have lost a large and increasingly politically active group of voters.

– It is simply a tradition that old people do not realize young people and that the political choices of young people are frequently incomprehensible, repulsive, or curiosity for the generation of their parents or grandparents. Bolesław Prusai almost 120 years ago, writing about young people participating in the 1905 Revolution, had the same feeling. He totally didn't realize what they were talking about. He felt that it was madness, radicalism, acting on the demolition of Poland. On the another hand, young people felt that the policy pursued by the old did not completely conform to their needs, aspirations.

What do young Poles present aspire to?

– surely to a better life, a better work-life balance, more housing availability. In particular, young people rise this last issue very strongly. It is rather a challenge for the rulers: complex, costly, time-consuming. However, young people do not intend to quit these goals and, moreover, anticipate the state to be able to give them a better quality of life.

My parents call it claims.

– And the young don't care at all. They grew up in different times, under different circumstances, have different generational experiences. They're not going to quit their goals due to the fact that individual said something about them. alternatively they want to make a change, and they feel more and more clearly their political cause.

One thing I don't understand. Definitely the most support given to Mentzen by these young people. To say that the welfare and extended public services are not his fairy tale is to say nothing.

– Mentzen promised a home with a garden and 2 cars for everyone. It was an offer.

Only for those who will gain it.

– Mentzen makes a promise to young people: you can handle yourself, and the state will not disturb you. The consequence is that everyone will live well, everyone will get more, due to the fact that this country is brought into the function of an oppressor. The same country where young people are very dissatisfied today. Mentzen's promise is so completely different from Zandberg's promise, but it is besides a promise of a better life and abundance.

This is the only place where there's an crucial contradiction. Mentzen is simply a believer of the lowest taxes and minimalism of the state. In turn, the majority of young people anticipate a fit state with advanced quality public services to not tell the welfare state. Plus, taxes, and not low, are necessary.

– This is not only a feature of the Polish young generation and Polish voters, that they would like more for less. State criticism for inefficiency and spending taxpayers' money on unnecessary things is besides a reasonably common scenario. I am not amazed by the attitude of young people.

– If individual works in the state administration and sees how badly he is underfunded, how many things in it are missing, how frequently he is not adequate for simple things, then he is critical. However, the same individual may honestly feel that taxpayers' money is wasted and taxes should be reduced. There's no conflict on the emotional level. People don't gotta have consistent views and frequently don't.

Young people want a different world, but besides a planet where they themselves or people closer to them are liable for their governance. They want individual who moves in the planet of their references, their values, their messages. Simple example: he's not talking to them from TVN, he's talking to them from TikToka.

But on a logical level, yes. And this they accuse of young older generations – that they want they didn't realize the mechanisms leading the country, that they deficiency experience. Is that true, or is that just a completely different imagination of this good life you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation?

- Yeah, that's the good life. Young people want a different world, but besides a planet where they themselves or people closer to them are liable for their governance. They want individual who moves in the planet of their references, their values, their messages. The simplest example: he's not talking to them from TVN, he's talking to them from TikTok. They want a man closer to himself, closer to their values and their reasoning about the world.

As you will explain, in October 2023, the Civic Coalition won in the 18-29 age group with 28.3 percent support, and after only 1 and a half years Trzaskowski in the same electorate collects only 12%. Salt bill for little than half a word of government?

– I think that young people expected decisive moves in areas of importance for themselves – housing, wellness care, ecology, human rights. In 2023 they voted against PiS due to the fact that they wanted change. They no longer wanted a organization in power that had ruled for 8 years and which, for various reasons, they had had had had enough. They hoped that with the change of power there would be a change in the quality of governance and the implementation of crucial demands for them. The change they hoped for did not happen or was insufficient in their assessment. Now they're looking for something new. delight note that in the first circular they did not return to PiS, but voted for individual else.

The others in the second circular are gone. The choice is from 2 candidates who do not like the young. And yet their lives for the presidency of each will look completely different. The choice of "minor evil" is simply a compromise that young people want to go to?

– I think people, including young people, are making rational choices in life. Just due to the fact that we do not realize them does not mean that these decisions are irrational, but that we do not realize the context in which they are taken. Of course, before the second round, both candidates tried persuasion towards young people – they wanted to convince them not that I was a better choice for you, but that the second was a worse choice for you and Poland under his regulation would be a worse place to live.

These 2 candidates are completely different. Nawrocks is simply a right-wing man, followed by a string of strange, not entirely explained stories from the past. Trzaskowski is simply a liberal in which many young people may erstwhile have believed, but he is now very disappointed, as is the Tusk government. Which 1 will win the conflict not for the heart, but for the young?

– No 1 knows that today. This is simply a million-dollar question, a question about the weight of the presidency. If I were to look at the values of young people, I would foretell that young women would vote for Trzaskowski in the majority, and young men would alternatively support Nawrocki. If 1 of them is adequate to win, we won't know until the evening of June 1.