Sławomir Mentzen, leader of the Confederation who placed third in the first round of Poland’s presidential election, posted a video on Youtube to discuss the conversations he had with the two candidates going into the second round on Sunday: Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by the Civic Coalition (KO), and Karol Nawrocki, backed by Law and Justice (PiS).
At stake was who Mentzen may tell his voters to support on June 1.
“The conversation with Karol Nawrocki was exceptionally non-confrontational. He adopted this tactic to show the audience that his views were very similar to mine. No matter what topic I started, Karol Nawrocki stated that he agreed with me,” said Mentzen.
He then said he was happy to see that Nawrocki would not simply toe the line for PiS and “basically distanced himself from basically the entire PiS policy of the last eight years.”
“And that’s good. If it turned out that he was following the PiS line on these issues, it would mean that there is no hope for us and nothing good awaits us,” Mentzen said.
Regarding the eight points Mentzen had presented to be signed by both candidates, he said, “No matter what point I started to discuss, Nawrocki agreed with me,” Mentzen said, adding that there was some discussion on taxes and Poles’ right to bear arms.
The discussion with Rafał Trzaskowski went very differently.
“Nawrocki wanted to show that he agreed with us, and Trzaskowski wanted to show that he disagreed with us on many issues, that he had his own views and was ready to defend them.”
The Confederation leader emphasized that Trzaskowski did not agree with most of them, and for those he agreed with, it was not 100 percent alignment.
Most prominently, they disagree about Ukraine, both in terms of NATO membership and Polish troops in that country.
“Trzaskowski lives in some world where Ukraine can be accepted into NATO and then we are practically certain that Russia will not attack Ukraine and we do not have to get involved in this war. And even if it does attack, it does not mean that the Polish army has to be sent to Ukraine,” said Mentzen.
“I don’t understand it at all. In my opinion, it looks completely different. Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO is a huge increase in the risk that Poland will be at war with Russia, which we wouldn’t want,” he added.
He also noted that the KO candidate saying that Polish troops would not have to be sent to Ukraine, were it a member of NATO, “undermines the credibility of Article 5. Undermines the credibility of NATO.”
Mentzen said Polish FM Sikorski had to explain the problem with this to Trzaskowski: “My opinion is that Trzaskowski is not aware of the consequences of Ukraine’s accession to NATO and, overall, it does not reflect well on him.”
The Civic Coalition candidate did not sign Mentzen’s 8-point declaration, while Nawrocki did.
“To sum up. I see no reason to vote for Rafał Trzaskowski. This is a man who represents the leftist agenda that I do not agree with,” said the leader of the Confederation.
“This is a man who is in favor of limiting freedom of speech. This is a man who supports all these climate transformations, who supports the direction of the European Union, who will be able to agree to transfer further competencies to the European Union. This is a man with whom I simply disagree on the most important issues,” Mentzen said.
In a message to his base, he then said: “I am deeply convinced that you have your own minds. Really, no one has to tell you who to vote for. You know perfectly well who you are closer to and vote the way your conscience tells you.”
He did, however, urge them to vote on Sunday.
“If you do not choose your president, others will choose him for you,” Mentzen told them.
