How Poland’s new right could become a kingmaker through Tiktok

In The Catholic nationalist PiS party has ruled Poland with an absolute majority for eight years. The alliance around Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski wants to stand for “law and justice”. In her reading, this means above all hate speech against refugees, drastic reforms in the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community and the revival of a new national pride. In the presidential election on October 15th, the PiS now has to fear losing its absolute majority after eight years. Of all people, a competitor from the right-wing camp could pose a threat to them.

Polls put the PiS at 38 percent ahead of the largest opposition party, the Civic Platform KO (30 percent), which is led by former President of the European Council Donald Tusk. However, an absolute majority for one of the parties appears to be impossible. The main reason for this is one man: Slawomir Mentzen. The 36-year-old is an entrepreneur and tax consultant – and chairman of the right-wing party Konfederacja, which has developed from a political outsider to the third strongest force in Poland’s party landscape in the last twelve months.

At first glance, Mentzen’s Tiktoks are anything but right-wing radical. In one of his most famous videos, he comments on the subject of tax cuts: “The taxes will be low and simple,” he promises. “You just have to want and be able to – and we want that very much.” According to Mentzen, this should be made possible by ending all social programs. Everyone is the creator of their own luck and responsible for their own personal fate – “like Elon Musk!”

Mentzen sells himself as an anti-politician who fights against the establishment in Warsaw. This image appeals to a young audience who seem to trust their own state less and less. Many young Poles see themselves unseen and disadvantaged compared to older generations. The 36-year-old politician takes up this anger in his videos. Referring to Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 73 years old, and Donald Tusk, 66 years old, he tweeted: “Both are older than my parents. It’s time to send them into retirement so that they stop thinking about the lives of young people to determine people.”

In the Polish media, many from Gen Z are critical of the top candidates Tusk and Morawiecki. Opposite the Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s second largest national daily newspaper, 30-year-old secretary Karolina speaks symptomatically: “This moldy generation of politicians will discuss communism, the church and the Pope until their death, as if they don’t understand that no one my age gives a shit gives.” Karolina states in the report that she is still undecided. However, many points, especially Mentzen’s market economy perspective, would convince them.

Anyone who tries to dismiss the potential of right-wing populist parties among young voters as purely Eastern European is wrong. In Germany, too, it seems as if the right-wing populist AfD has the greatest digital expertise and is hitting a nerve with young people with their “against the system” stance. According to an analysis by the editorial network Germany and the Intermate Group Compared to other parties, the AfD accounts as well as their state associations and top politicians have by far the most followers on Tiktok and YouTube, where many young people are active. Only on Instagram is the party classified as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution not at the top.