“The name is Szydło, Beata Szydło”: the 52-year-old miner’s daughter adopted the Bond-esque catchphrase on her rise from relative obscurity to the brink of power in Poland. According to the exit polls on Sunday night, Szydło, head of the rightwing Law and Justice party, is set fair to become the country’s next prime minister.
An MP and veteran of provincial politics, Szydło was picked as the party’s frontwoman after an impressive performance as campaign manager for Andrzej Duda, who swept to victory in May’s presidential election. In last week’s televised debate ahead of the parliamentary and senate elections, Szydło’s stolid personality left the prime minister, Ewa Kopacz, looking weak and lost for words.
But Szydło’s critics see the hand of the party chairman and co-founder, Jarosław Kaczyński, in her every move. In gender-conservative Poland, there have been numerous suggestions that she is a puppet of the 66-year-old former prime minister.
A dominant personality in Polish politics, Kaczyński is the identical twin brother of the late president, Lech Kaczyński, who died in the 2010 Smolensk air crash. He was himself the Law and Justice party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2005 parliamentary election. When the party won, he turned down the position, claiming that his nomination would reduce Lech’s chances in the presidential election the same year. He became prime minister the following year and served until the Law and Justice government fell apart in 2007.
Szydło’s campaign style has been characterised by energy and grassroots appeal. She has taken every opportunity to play up her credentials as a hardworking miner’s daughter and mother of two sons. In meetings with voters, she has made promises – to reduce the retirement age and raise the minimum wage – but provided a deliberately moderate contrast with Kaczyński’s brash style. He remained invisible during the last leg of her campaign, producing only one of his trademark outbursts – about the risk of “diseases” brought by migrants – 10 days ago.
As a result of Kaczyński taking a back seat, Law and Justice has emerged from the campaign looking rejuvenated and crisp, removed from its roots as a Kaczyński family firm and more in touch with ordinary people’s concerns. Szydło has even managed to make Poles forget that the last time Law and Justice won a parliamentary election, in 2005, it only managed to keep its coalition partners together for two years.
