The Left Lewica
Leaders	Włodzimierz Czarzasty Robert Biedroń Magdalena Biejat
Parliamentary leader	Anna Maria Żukowska
Founded	19 July 2019
Preceded by	United Left
Ideology	Social democracy[1] Social liberalism[1] Progressivism[1] Pro-Europeanism[2]
Political position	Centre-left[3]
National affiliation	Senate Pact 2023 (for2023 Senate election)
European Parliament group	Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (NL)
Members	New Left Polish Socialist Party Labour Union Social Democracy of Poland Freedom and Equality The City Is Ours Together Party (until 2024)
Sejm	21 / 460
Senate	8 / 100
European Parliament	3 / 53
Regional assemblies	8 / 552
City Presidents[4]	11 / 107
Website
klub-lewica.org.pl
Politics of Poland Political parties Elections

The Left (Polish:Lewica) is apolitical alliance inPoland. Initially founded to contest the2019 parliamentary election, existed in this format until 2024, the alliance of theNew Left,Razem (eng. Together Party) and other smaller parties.^[5]

It also originally consisted ofDemocratic Left Alliance andSpring until its merging to create the New Left, including thePolish Socialist Party that left the coalition in 2021. It is also supported by several minor left-wing parties, includingYour Movement,Yes for Łódź,^[6]Urban Movement,^[7] and thePolish Communist Party.^[8]

The Left is acatch-all coalition of the Polish left,^[9] and it is positioned on thecentre-left.^[9][10] It is mainly orientated towards the principles ofsocial democracy,^[11] but it also advocatesprogressive,social-liberal^[12] andsecular policies, includingLGBT rights.^[13][14] BeforeRazem party left it, The Left also hadleft-wing^[15] and democratic socialist factions.^[16] It is supportive ofPoland's membership in the European Union.^[14]

In the2023 Polish parliamentary election, The Left coalition technically participated as theNew Left party, whose list included representatives ofLeft Together,Labour Union,Polish Socialist Party,Freedom and Equality andSocial Democracy of Poland.^[17][18]

As Lewica is formed as a unification of the Polish left, it has attempted to diversify its platform and appeal to a broader range of voters, rather than relying mostly on the votes of former officials and civil servants during thePPR period, which had been and continues to be one of theDemocratic Left Alliance's largest voting blocs. This attempt, however, was met with somewhat limited success by the fact that the coalition's pro-LGBT rights platform failed to appeal toworking class and economically left-leaning Poles, which tend to favour a moresocially conservative policy (especially as both economically interventionist and social conservative positions were already being provided by theright-wingPiS party). At the same time, the moreliberally-oriented city-dwelling population, which could favour the party's proposedsocially progressive policies, found little appeal in the party's platform ofeconomic interventionism.^[9][19][20]

Despite this, some sociologists theorized that the unification of the parties could lead to an overall mobilization of leftist voters,^[21] which could now feel that their vote for the coalition wouldn't be wasted.^[9] This was confirmed to be the case when Lewica succeeded in electing 49 members to theSejm and 2 members to theSenate of Poland in the2019 Polish parliamentary election, thus making the coalition Poland's third largest political force and overturning a four-year absence of left-wing representatives in Poland's parliament.^[22][23]

In addition, the party's platform, which differs greatly from the platforms of the other major Polish political parties, has managed to find some support among disillusioned younger and secular voters, which don't identify with any political force or even with the left, but instead desire "something new".^[20][24]

At the same time, the party also received a considerable boost in support among older voters after the ruling PiS party passed a "degradation law", which cut retirement pensions and disability benefits for thousands of former bureaucrats during the PPR period, whose main income was now directly threatened by the new government policy. This led to an expansion and consolidation of the otherwise shrinking of theDemocratic Left Alliance's previously described voting bloc.^[24]

The 2019 electoral program of the Left included:^[25][26]

• investments inrenewable energy sources andenergy efficiency,
• rewilding, including reforestation and restoration of wetlands,
• appointment of the Commissioner for Animal Rights, prohibition offur farming,use of animals in circuses and cage farming,
• universal national crop insurance against drought and flooding,
• cameras on police uniforms recording in continuous mode,
• moving 1/4 of ministries and government agencies outsideWarsaw,
• abolishing theInstitute of National Remembrance and the National Day of Remembrance of the "cursed soldiers",
• increasing R&D expenditure to 2% of GDP,
• sick leave pay and sickness benefit amounting to 100% of the basic salary plus bonuses and allowances,
• establishing a minimum wage at 60% of the average wage,
• minimum wage of 3500 PLN in the public sector,
• widening the competences of the National Labour Inspectorate,
• a maximum fee for a prescription drug of 5 PLN,
• increasing public healthcare expenditure to 7.2% of GDP in 2024,
• introducing health and sex education in schools,
• extinguishing the reprivatization claims,
• establishing a public enterprise to provide one million flats in the years 2021–2031,
• in vitro fertilization reimbursement,
• fully paid and compulsory leave with a minimum of 12 weeks for both parents of a newborn,
• transparency of church funding and abolishing the Church Fund,
• Separation of church and state
• liberalisingPoland's abortion law,
• gender quotas inthe Council of Ministers,
• introducingsame-sex marriage andcivil partnerships.

Parliamentary group under the name Coalition Parliamentary Club of the Left (Polish:Koalicyjny Klub Parlamentarny Lewicy) is chaired byAnna Maria Żukowska.^[27] It currently has 21 members in the Sejm,^[27] and 8 senators.^[28]

Election	Leader	Popular vote	% of votes	Seats	+/−	Government	Ref
2019	Włodzimierz Czarzasty	2,319,946 (#3)	12.56	49 / 460	New	PiS	[33]
	Officially registered asDemocratic Left Alliance party list.
2023	Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Robert Biedroń	1,859,018 (#4)	8.61	26 / 460	23	PiS Minority (2023)	[34]
						KO–PL2050–PSL–NL (2023-present)
	Officially registered asNew Left party list.

Election	Leader	Popular vote	% of votes	Seats	+/−	Majority	Ref
2019	Włodzimierz Czarzasty	415,745 (#4)	2.28	2 / 100	New	KO–PSL–L	[35]
	Officially registered asDemocratic Left Alliance party list.
2023	Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Robert Biedroń	1,131,639 (#5)	5.29	9 / 100	7	KO–TD–L	[36]
	Officially registered asNew Left party list.

Election	Leader	Popular vote	% of votes	Seats	+/−	Ref
2024	Robert Biedroń[a]	741,071 (#5)	6.30	3 / 53	5	[37]

Election	Leader	Popular vote	% of votes	Seats	+/−	Ref
2024	Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Robert Biedroń	911,430 (#5)	6.32	8 / 552	3	[38]

• 2019 establishments in Poland
• Democratic Left Alliance
• Left Together
• Political parties established in 2019
• Political party alliances in Poland
• Pro-European political parties in Poland
• Secularism in Poland
• Spring (political party)

• CS1 Polish-language sources (pl)
• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Polish-language text