PiS Deputy Jacek Sasin accuses Grzegorz Braun of deliberately blocking a right-wing coalition, as the party ramps up attacks on its smaller rival.
Sasin’s Accusations
“It’s hard to have sympathy for this man, truly,” said Jacek Sasin about Grzegorz Braun. The former deputy prime minister stated on TVN24 that Braun’s party “in a sense disrupts the situation, where the right has a majority and can consume that majority by forming a coalition.”
Sasin asserted that the right-wing radical is “doing everything” to prevent such a coalition from succeeding after the 2027 elections. He added, “One could say that in this sense, he also acts in favor of today’s rulers in Poland, who have an interest, it’s clearly visible. Tusk is rooting for Braun today, that’s completely obvious to us.”
Braun Better Than Tusk
The intensified rhetoric against their smaller right-wing competitor is evident in Sasin’s remarks. Just over a month earlier, another statement by the former deputy premier made waves on TVN24. While Sasin said he couldn’t imagine a coalition with Korona, he also noted that if a majority couldn’t be formed without Korona, such a coalition would need consideration.
“Of course, I prefer Grzegorz Braun to Donald Tusk,” the PiS politician admitted when asked which party would sooner enter a coalition.
State of Danger
Korona consistently polling above the electoral threshold no longer surprises anyone. Braun’s party has rarely dropped below 7% in recent weeks. Meanwhile, PiS cannot reverse its negative polling trend, which began shortly after Karol Nawrocki’s presidential victory. Jarosław Kaczyński’s party regularly trails Civic Coalition by several percentage points in political party support polls.
“Prawo i Sprawiedliwość has never been in a state of such a threat. Grzegorz Braun is the first politician who entered PiS’s territory and secured part of that party’s electorate. This was shown by the presidential elections and research on electoral flow structures,” stated Professor Rafał Chwedoruk of the University of Warsaw.
Two Strategies
The political scientist adds that “a professional party can deal with this problem in two ways.” The first is “embracing the enemy,” attempting to programmatically resemble them to confuse voters. The second is highlighting differences and adopting a Manichaean view: “even if our opponent masks himself with views far from Civic Coalition, in essence, he serves its interests.”
There’s an impression that PiS is currently floundering between these two strategies. A similar pattern occurred with Confederation in recent months: fierce attacks were accompanied by weeks discussing a possible coalition. Now, this is being rapidly repeated with regard to Grzegorz Braun’s Korona, he notes.
PiS Attacks Braun Over Minimum Wage
Currently, PiS’s tactic towards Korona involves exploiting differences between the groups. This is evident not only in Sasin’s remarks but also in reactions to recent statements by Roman Fritz, a Korona MP and vice-chairman. Fritz called the minimum wage “a very harmful solution” on Radio Wnet.
Politicians from PiS countered aggressively. “They keep pretending how pro-Polish they are, when in fact they are just ordinary libs wanting to milk Poles for starvation wages. This is a program of national economic ruin,” commented Radosław Fogiel on X. “Unrealistic pests,” wrote Olga Semeniuk-Patkowska briefly. “They want to hammer the weakest. It seems working for 3 zł an hour is the new promise. This is a scandal. The times before PiS rule will not return. We won’t allow it,” stated Tobiasz Bocheński, who, unlike Jacek Sasin and Przemysław Czarnek, had already ruled out a coalition with Korona.
What About the Senate Pact?
The question of a right-wing Senate pact remains open, previously advocated for by figures like Janusz Kowalski. It was meant to unite PiS, Confederation, and Korona. As reported by Gazeta.pl, Confederation hasn’t ruled out an agreement with PiS to regain the Senate, but in Sławomir Mentzen’s concept, President Karol Nawrocki would have patronage.
“Poland is roughly divided in half, and if one half agrees to run one candidate in a given constituency while the other runs separately, the latter will lose, even with a large vote share. Single-mandate constituencies work that way. I assume politicians are aware of this obvious fact and that a Senate pact will happen,” said Łukasz Pawłowski, head of the All-Poland Research Group, last autumn.