US embassy cable - 05WARSAW3429

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 WARSAW 003429 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ECON, PL, Polish Elections 
SUBJECT:  CHILDREN OF MARTIAL LAW AND YOUTHFUL POLITICS IN 
POLAND'S ELECTIONS 
 
 
1. (U) Summary: A survey of the youth wings of Poland's 
political parties and discussions with young voters give a 
picture of a generation raised in post-communist Poland 
fairly disengaged from the political process. While 
dedicated individuals in and out of the party structure try 
to reverse this trend, the level of grass-roots organization 
remains weak. To appeal to younger voters, parties are 
counting on providing representative examples to Poland's 
youth by fielding young candidates. By focusing on economic 
issues they hope to appeal to this segment of the population 
with over 30% unemployment. End summary. 
 
2. (SBU) Emboff and PolFSN met with representatives of Civic 
Platform (PO), Law and Justice (PiS), Democratic Left 
Alliance (SLD), Social Democracy of Poland (SdPL) and the 
Polish Peasant Party (PSL) over the past few weeks to try to 
ascertain the strategies employed by the parties to attract 
young voters and understand the circumstances behind the low 
turnout and lack of interest in politics among Poland's 
youth. These meetings were mostly conducted with the heads 
and representatives of each party's youth wing and also 
included higher-level meetings with some party officials. 
Emboff focused on the issues facing the youth electorate, 
the organizational and logistical makeup of the parties and 
their campaigns vis a vis the youth vote and the impact 
these campaigns were having on expected participation and 
turnout by young voters. We did not meet with 
representatives of Self Defense (SO) nor with the Youth of 
All Poland, which is associated with the League of Polish 
Families (LPR), because of their extremist positions. 
 
POLAND'S YOUTH 
-------------------------- 
 
3. (SBU) Voters aged 18-30 comprise the youth vote for most 
political parties. (Note:  SLD's upper age for youth is 35, 
which reflects its aging demographics, and allows the 
current Party Chair and Secretary General (aged 31 and 32 
respectively) to be defined as "youth" End Note.)  This age 
group was born in the late 1970s and early 80s, turned 18 
(the legal voting age in Poland) in the 1990s and has faint 
recollections of Poland's communist past. Poland's baby 
boom, born in the year following the imposition of martial 
law in December of 1981, will have its first chance to vote 
during this year's elections and comprises up to 3 million 
eligible voters. The young electorate in Poland is more 
highly educated than the rest of the electorate (Poland now 
has one of the highest rates of university education in 
Europe) and better traveled than their elders (the past 
three years have seen nearly 20,000 students a year 
traveling to the U.S. on the Work and Travel program and 
estimates have 250,000 Poles living in Ireland and as many 
as 500,000 in the United Kingdom, most of them under 30). 
 
4. (U) Emboff's contacts defined their typical youth voter 
to be an educated student or university graduate, living in 
a mid to large-sized Polish city. The rural-based PSL does 
not expect to receive many youth votes. An increasing number 
of articles in the Polish and foreign press (including in 
the Economist) note the disillusionment of Poland's youth 
with the political process. Most of the people we spoke with 
expect the youth turnout to be near 30% (in 2001 it was 
34%). This is part of a continuing downward trend for 
turnout in Poland since the first democratic elections in 
the early 1990s. Turnout has declined steeply across all age 
groups, though is perhaps most pronounced for the "first- 
timers" that may never vote at all. 
 
5. (U) The electorate's top concern, including for its 
youngest portion, is the country's economic situation, 
especially an unemployment rate that hovers around 18%. Some 
estimate the rate for younger Poles to be near 30-35%. In 
addition to unemployment, younger voters are focused on an 
on-going debate over proposals to charge tuition at public 
universities, which are now essentially free. 
 
PARTY ORGANIZATION 
--------------------------------- 
 
6. (U) Poland's political party system--like its government- 
-is centralized with funding and decisions emanating out of 
Warsaw. The depth and development of the party structures 
outside of Warsaw and the major cities varies mostly 
according to the parties' histories, with the "largest" 
parties throughout Poland in terms of offices and official 
members being SLD and PSL, both of whom inherited their 
Communist predecessors' infrastructures. The youth wings of 
SLD (the Federation of Young Social Democrats--FMS), and PO 
are separate entities, associated with but not controlled by 
the parties themselves. PiS and SdPL have youth groups that 
receive all of their funding from and are run as a division 
of the main party. PSL does not have a specific youth 
division. 
 
7. (SBU) All of the youth organizations we met expect to 
work as part of the party apparatus during the campaigns, 
believing that the messages conveyed to the general public 
via television, radio advertisements and direct mail apply 
to all voters, be they 18 or 78. The Internet sites of these 
youth groups toe the parties' lines, but are tailored to 
their peers and highlight debates, youth meetings and 
messages about "youth" topics, especially the debate about 
university fees. The youth wings have been debating one 
another publicly; though have not garnered much press for 
their efforts. The concepts of get-out-the-vote efforts and 
targeted messages are noticeably absent from Polish 
politicking in general.  All the political operators Emboff 
met responded with blank stares to questions about turnout 
by demographics, door to door campaigning and Election Day 
transportation. 
 
8. (SBU) PO and PiS, the center-right parties expected to 
form the next government, have engaged many young people 
through their outreach to Poland's Eastern neighbors, 
especially in support of democracy in Ukraine and Belarus. 
The youth groups in PO and PiS sent election monitors to 
Ukraine's 2004 elections and intend to invite Belarusian 
activists to observe the Polish elections.  They have 
contacts with Belarusian (including the banned Zubr 
movement), Ukrainian and even Georgian youth movements. PO 
in particular has been successful in making Belarus and its 
treatment of the Polish minority an election issue.  Some 
trace its current rise in the polls to a visit to Belarus by 
PO Presidential candidate Donald Tusk after Belarusian 
President Lukashenko's crack downs on opposition and Polish 
minority groups. 
 
9. (U) In asking these various organizers and groups about 
their parties' attractiveness to young voters, most pointed 
to the fact that the parties had recruited significant 
numbers of young candidates to run on the party ticket in 
parliamentary elections. SLD representatives were 
particularly well-prepared with a list showing 216 
candidates for Parliament under the age of 35 and repeatedly 
mentioning their youthful new leader. PO talked about its 
Presidential candidate, known for his "youthful" appearance 
and affinity for soccer. The head of the PiS youth 
organization is running for Parliament and the organizer for 
SdPL ran previously for European Parliament and is an 
elected member of city government in a suburb of Warsaw. 
While Emboff did not meet with the LPR-associated Youth of 
All Poland, recent articles note their increasing strength 
within the party. In fact, some senior LPR members split off 
from the party after LPR leader Roman Giertych replaced them 
with younger supporters on the Parliamentary lists. 
 
WHY VOTE? 
----------------- 
 
10. (SBU) While very few young Poles would advocate a 
departure from democracy (nor understand what that would 
mean) there is a strong feeling among Poland's young adults 
that there is little value to participating in the 
elections. As graduates of some of Poland's best 
universities find themselves having to choose between 
washing dishes in London and living at home because the jobs 
available do not pay enough to rent an apartment, there has 
been an increasing sense of alienation from politics. Emboff 
has heard time and again from well-educated, well-employed 
young Poles that no party or candidate represents their 
interests and that all the major parties and candidates are 
part of a corrupt and incompetent system. Most of those who 
intend to vote will do so to deny one of the extremist 
parties a good showing and will vote in favor of the "less 
evil" candidate. 
 
COMMENT 
-------------- 
 
11. (SBU) In nearly every instance that a young potential 
voter referred to "picking the lesser evil," they were 
referring to PO and Donald Tusk. There are no statistics to 
show if any of PO's recent rise in the polls results from an 
increase in support from young voters, but PO's centrist 
positions and liberal economic values make it a natural 
choice for a group that only knows the capitalist system and 
has no recollection, yet alone affinity for the "good old 
days." At the same time, the number of respondents in polls 
claiming that they intend to vote in the Parliamentary and 
Presidential elections is increasing, though these responses 
are not broken out by age group. Whether or not they vote in 
large numbers in the upcoming elections, these young people 
will have to become engaged, both politically and 
economically, for Poland to succeed in the future.