Women angered by reversal of their rights could swing Polish election

Inez, a 26-year-old Polish lawyer, is so angry with her government that she is running for the opposition in Sunday’s general election.

Considered by many to be Europe’s most important election this year, the vote will decide the direction – liberal or illiberal democracy – of this country of 38 million, and its place in the EU.

Polls suggest the ruling national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party is certain to finish five or six points short of the support needed for an absolute majority; its hopes of a record third term hinge on uncertain coalition options with smaller parties.

Polling agencies believe Sunday’s election will be decided by the undecideds, about nine per cent of the total electorate, of which the majority are women. In particular angry young women like Inez Niszczak-Sieradzka.

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At a rally in Lodz, an industrial city in central Poland, the political debutante has a blunt message for PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Jarek to his friends, and the country’s de facto leader.

“I want to send a message to a man who hates women,” she tells a packed hall. “Jarek: your government will be destroyed by women.”

Her words cause a crackle in the air of the repurposed Lodz power station, just as anger over the rollback of women’s rights overseen by Kaczynski could swing an already charged election campaign.

Millions of women have attended protest marches and vigils in the last two years since Poland restricted legal abortion to cases of rape, incest or if there is a threat to a woman’s life or health.

Tightening abortion rules played well with traditional and conservative PiS voters, and its allies in the Catholic church. But each month brings fresh cases of pregnant women dying from complications in hospitals, as uncertain medical teams look on, afraid to intervene.

In March, activist Justyna Wydrzynska was convicted and sentenced to eight months community service for sending so-called abortion pills to a pregnant woman in an abusive relationship.

At the Lodz rally, 58-year-old doctor Marysia says the anxiety among women patients is palpable – as is the chilling effect of the new regulations among her fellow doctors.

“Women are so afraid they are not safe that many go abroad now, not just for abortions but also for their entire maternity care,” she says. “I worry about what they will try to ban next, maybe even the regular contraception pill.”

In recent days, a video trending on Polish social media begins with various Polish women listening to voiceover snippets of government politicians.

“The Law and Justice government puts women on a pedestal”; “Women don’t need as much education as a man, it’s just for entertainment”; “the purpose of family is procreation, even wild boars know it”; “women shouldn’t have the vote”.

The video ends with the previously isolated women gathering to give the finger to their male political leaders. The final message of these Polish women: “Shut up. We are 52 per cent.”

The video is a response to recent research that women are more likely to switch off from Poland’s increasingly polarised political debate and robust rhetoric. A second study this month showed that twice as many women than men, 13 per cent, are undecided about who has their vote on Sunday.

“Women feel less confident than men when making electoral decisions,” noted the report by the Stefan Batory Foundation. “Women are more interested in topics such as cost of living, women’s rights and health.”

These numbers make opposition parties quietly confident that, even for women who previously voted PiS, the party’s record in office makes it unelectable this time around.

Listening closely at the Lodz rally is Donald Tusk, the opposition leader of the centrist-liberal Civic Platform (PO) who governed a decade ago and is hoping for another chance with a political alliance. Dressed in blue trousers and an open-collared white shirt, Tusk promises his audience, if elected, a 100-day programme to restore what PiS have taken from them in the last eight years.

“You women have been victimised, attacked and harassed by the highest forces of this state,” he says. “It cannot be that we have to fight now for women’s fundamental rights, it can’t be this way any more.”

[ Poland’s opposition leader Donald Tusk calls for change at massive Warsaw rally ]

Four decades ago it was Polish shipyard workers – many women – who began the uprising against communism that ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now a popular Polish anthem from that time echoes around the hall in Lodz: “I’m not an important person/I’ve not seen much/but I understand freedom/and I cannot give it up.”

Middle-aged women in the crowd smile and sing along. Some are misty-eyed, others are incredulous and angry that they are fighting their government – in 2023 – for rights they had even under communism.

“My mother’s generation was silent, perhaps too silent,” says Agnieszka, a 58-year-old woman at the Lodz rally. “But on Sunday it’s time for my generation to take a stand.”