Polish far right picks up steam as presidential election approaches”

lawomir Mentzen, the far-right Konfederacja alliance candidate, is polling at 22% ahead of the Polish presidential election on May 18.

“Slawomir, Slawomir!” chanted several hundred people gathered outside the city hall of Kalisz, a town of 90,000 inhabitants in western Poland, on Friday, March 7. The hero of this small crowd dominated by men under 40 was Slawomir Mentzen, co-chair of the far-right Konfederacja alliance and candidate in the May 18 and June 1 presidential election. On the small podium set up for the occasion, elected officials took turns as the candidate arrived from another rally 30 kilometers away. Kalisz was his fourth and last rally of the day.

“I like him a lot more than our current president [Andrzej Duda]. What he says about Ukrainians abusing Poland’s generosity speaks to me,” said Elwira Kasprzacka, a security guard, who is also drawn to the tax cuts promised by Konfederacja. Mentzen, a 38-year-old entrepreneur who has been sitting in the Sejm, the Polish lower house, since 2023 and is omnipresent on social media, has convinced this lifelong abstainer to vote for the first time in her life. “Like many Poles, I didn’t think it would make any difference,” said the 40-something, who could see only one downside: “Konfederacja’s leaders think women should stay at home.”