‘House with a Garden’: How PiS Paints the ‘Polish Dream’

The populist PiS has an edge in these elections as the party in power during a period of prosperity. In recent years, Poland's growth rates have put other EU economies to shame. Incomes have increased and unemployment has remained low.

Clouds on the horizon, such as food price inflation, are few and far away. 

Just as importantly, PiS is the party that four years ago understood that the way to win elections is through income redistribution.

PiS stormed to power in 2015, pushing aside the centre-right Civic Platform by promising generous subsidies for families with children.

Through its "500+" programme, PiS handed out around 115 euros a month for each child to families with more than one. This summer, it extended the programme to include families with one child. 

While opposition parties initially criticised "500+" as irresponsible spending, it has become too popular to touch. PiS's two main challengers in October — Civic Platform and the left-wing Lewica alliance — both say they will keep it. 

In European Parliament elections in May, PiS drew most of its support from working-class people and the lower echelons of the middle class in rural areas and small towns, as well as the elderly.

The party correctly diagnosed that the aspirations of many of these people had not been met — even after Poland joined the EU and the economy grew. It positioned itself as the party able to meet them.

At the start of the Lublin convention, after flag-waving crowds sang the national anthem, a father of five from the small town of Otwock near Warsaw took to the stage to express his gratitude for "500+" and other handouts offered by PiS.

Thanks to PiS, he said he was able to buy a house with a garden and give his kids better...