‘We have a chance to change Poland’: how young voters shaped the election result

The last time anyone other than the Law and Justice party (PiS) ruled Poland, Aleksandra, a sociology student in Warsaw, was 10. Throughout her adolescence, the rightwing populism of Jarosław Kaczyński’s party was the defining force, a series of governments rolling back abortion rights, eroding the rule of law and politicising the state apparatus.

Now, however, Aleksandra’s generation appears to have fought back, turning out in huge numbers to help oust PiS and its septuagenarian leader from power. “I voted for the first time and I don’t really remember a Poland ruled by the opposition,” said the now 18-year-old student, who preferred not to give her surname.

Aleksandra voted in Sunday’s election for the leftwing party Lewica, which garnered 8.6% of the overall vote and is likely to enter some form of coalition with Donald Tusk, the opposition leader and former prime minister. She said she hopes any new government will “depoliticise public television” and address women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.

Jakub Gajownik, 22, voted in the election despite having what he describes as an aversion to politics. Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

But, standing near the entrance of Warsaw’s busiest underground station, known almost universally as Patelnia (the frying pan), she said she had not only been voting for a progressive cause, but against the status quo: “My motivation was also to help put an end to the PiS rule.”

Turnout in this election was 74.3%, a record that exceeded even the turnout of 1989, a vote that triggered the collapse of the Soviet-backed communist system. Key to that was the mobilisation of youth, historically the most disengaged demographic, and women, said Jacek Kucharczyk, a sociologist who is director of the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP). Almost 69% of under-30s turned out to vote.

“There have been many social media campaigns and projects encouraging young voters to vote,” he said. “But I think Jarosław Kaczyński has himself driven many young voters to polling stations by pushing all the money towards pensioners.”

In central Warsaw, where turnout was a staggering 84.9%, Michał Grabarski, a 25-year-old flight attendant, said he hoped a new Tusk-led government would translate into a more attractive country for his generation.

“I think Poland will now become a better country for young people. There will be more incentives for them to stay here,” he said. Grabarski voted for Tusk’s Civic Coalition, even if Lewica is closer to his heart, in the hope that a bigger opposition party will have more scope to improve the future of Poland. In the end Civic Coalition won 30.7% of the vote.

“This record turnout among young people demonstrates that we’ve had enough,” he added. “Prohibitions don’t work with young people – they want to love whom they want and decide about themselves.”

Espra Mielczarek, 25, voted for Lewica and wants strengthened women’s rights. Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

A reversal of PiS’s hostile stance on minority rights seems to have been on the minds of many young voters: during the campaign Tusk said he would make it a priority to introduce same-sex civil partnerships. So too is a potential legalisation of abortion up to 12 weeks, which the former president of the European Council also vowed to enact if elected.

“I hope that the ban on abortion will be lifted, that women’s rights will be respected, and that there is more financial transparency,” said EspraMielczarek, a 25-year-old arts student. She voted for Lewica: “I think that our younger generation has a chance to change Poland.”

Paulina Pospieszna, a political scientist at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, west Poland, said the enormous street protests of 2020 against a near-total ban on abortion had been a breakthrough moment for youth political mobilisation.

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“I think the abortion protests were a moment of political awakening for many young people and taught many the value of civic engagement,” she said. “Many felt agency and the need to protest because religion and politics encroached on their private lives too much.”

Michał Grabarski, a flight attendant, hopes the election result will make Poland more attractive to young people. Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

While the abortion laws had “pushed Poland back in time”, young Poles had not been fooled, she added. “[They are] modern, they travel and have friends abroad; they know what’s normal outside of the country and they value their civil liberties. If we look at how they voted, young people are not conservative or populist; civil liberties are important to them.”

Pospieszna said Poland was witnessing nothing less than “the rebirth of representative democracy”. “I am glad that youth have seen that voting is their civic responsibility, because not voting puts them in danger of authoritarian and populist governments.”

Standing by the Warszawa Centralna railway station, Robert, a 22-year-old soldier, said he had personal experience of how such governments operate. “I was appalled to see PiS using the army for their political aims during the campaign. In the past two months, my colleagues and I were constantly sent to potato festivals, driven around like a circus – presenting army gear, uniforms. This is not the role of a serious army.”

Robert, who did not want to be identified for professional reasons, voted for the Third Way, a centre-right party, “because I consider all the other parties repulsive”. “During the past 30 years there was no change and the same people have been keeping their noses in the trough,” he said. Now he wants a new government to focus on the depolarisation of society. “We need to be able to act together, as one.”

Not all young voters, however, have been reflecting quite so seriously on the election results. Near Warsaw’s looming palace of culture and science, Jakub Gajownik, 22, said that he had voted despite nursing an aversion to politics and made his choice while driving his car and seeing a poster of a Civic Coalition candidate. “I thought: you are the one for me,” he said, laughing. But since voting, he confessed, with a disarming smile, he hadn’t actually checked who had won.