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In last Sunday’s Polish election, the populist Law and Justice Party won 43.6 per cent of the vote. That is a full six per cent higher than the vote that first brought them to power in 2015, and will give them an absolute majority in parliament.

The Law and Justice Party is not an attractive organization. It cultivates the national taste for self-pity and martyrdom (the “Christ of the Nations”), and always finds some imaginary threat to Polish values that only it can protect the nation from. In 2015 it was Muslim refugees (none of whom were actually heading for Poland); this time it was the alleged LGBT threat to Polish culture.

In power, it has curbed the freedom of the press, attacked the independence of the judiciary, and replaced civil service professionals with party loyalists. Several times it has been threatened with sanctions for its anti-democratic actions by the European Union, which has the duty of defending democracy among its member countries.

Law and Justice’s rhetoric is divisive and hateful. Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski explained that it was at war with “a new mixture of cultures and races, a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who only use renewable energy and who battle all signs of religion.”

So far, so bad, but fairly typical of the new generation of populist parties. What is very different, and gave Law and Justice its resounding victory in this election, is that it addressed not only its voters’ ideological concerns but also their economic needs.