LePen – POP

2015 is not finished yet, but for those interested in populism it has been a remarkably “populist year”. The economic crisis is (allegedly) coming to an end, but this is not the case for populist politicians. Let’s start our journey among populist leaders precisely from the “Eastern European tiger”: Poland.

Paweł Kukiz

1) Vodka & Rock ‘n’ Roll

Paweł Kukiz. A right-winger with a left-wing heart, as he likes to say. A rockstar turned rightwing politician, say the media. Anti-system candidate, in practical terms. His movement scored 8.8% at the last elections in Poland, while in May Kukiz came third in the first round of the presidential elections.

He was the vocalist of the Breasts (Piersi) during the 80s and 90s, and in 2012 he launched a website to promote single-member constituencies. In a classically populist way, he claims that the Polish political structure privileges the elites at the expense of the population.

In 2010 Mr Kukiz opposed a ‘EuroPride’ homosexual march in Warsaw and was dismissive of the election in 2011 of Anna Grodzka, Poland’s first transsexual parliamentary deputy.

In three words: controversial, irresolute, engaged.

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Aurelien Mondon’s primary research currently focuses on neo-racism, Islamophobia and right-wing populism, and their impact on liberal democracies. More detail can be found here and here. He is Lecturer in French and comparative politics working on racism, populism, the far right and the crisis of democracy at the University of Bath. I asked him some general questions about populism, democracy, resistance and revolutions.

Let’s start by placing populism in its historical context. Is it still possible to claim that populism means ‘giving power to the people’, or nowadays even those who vote for populist parties know that they are actually delegating their power to (more or less) charismatic leaders and parties?

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