Green MP Anna Grodzka to run for president of Poland

The left-wing coalition initiated by The Green Party and the Association FAIR Society has reached a decision to propose Anna Grodzka as a candidate in the elections for the President of Poland.

Anna Grodzka, deputy in the Polish Parliament and a member of the Green Party, is a candidate of the Green Party and the social left, elected by the Steering Committee “Primaries for the Society’s Candidate for the Polish President”. The Committee was established on January 24, 2015 by the members of fourteen organizations, including the Green Party, Association FAIR Society, The Humanistic Society, Free Radom, The Institute for Global Responsibility, The Stop-Stereotypes Association, The Modern Left, The Feminoteka Foundation, The Suwak (Zipper/Slider) Association, The Independent Institute of Social-Political Thought, The Polish Tenants Association, The Polish Society of Rationalists, The A.F. Modrzewski Foundation, and Ecological Association EKO-Unia.

The Committe works according to an open-ended formula, allowing all organizations and institutions which share the principles contained in the Program Manifesto adopted by the Committee to join in. The aim of the Committee was to propose a common candidate, a person who would offer a genuine left-wing alternative to the President now in office and to the candidates of the mainstream parties.

In the manifesto of the Committee the candidate is presented as a person who will actively protect the interests of the society, and will stop Poland being treated as the reservoir of cheap labour. The candidate will also defend the economic and social rights of the Polish people.  The aim is to create in Poland conditions for sustainable, harmonious economic growth and for social solidarity. The candidate of the social left is also interested in supporting energetic transformation of the Polish economy, in the direction of dispersed, prosument, renewable energy. But the main objective of the candidate is to invigorate and renew Polish democracy, to safeguard the secular character of the Polish state, to make the political system more transparent, and to secure true participation of Polish citizens in the process of political decision-making, while guaranteeing the influence of all citizens on the economy in accordance with workplace democracy.

The Committe agreed that Anna Grodzka will best represent the values of the social left in the forthcoming presidential elections, and will actively pursue the established goals.

During the Press conference, organized on February 13, 2015, at 12.00 noon in the headquarters of the Polish Press Agency (PAP ul.Bracka 6/8), the candidate appointed by the Committee, Anna Grodzka, will officially open her presidential campaign.

(Translation: Daniel Arciszewski)

Anna Grodzka MP joins the Green Party

Friday, 27th June. Anna Grodzka MP of the Your Movement defected to the Green Party.  Grodzka will stay in the Your Movement's parliamentary group in order to continue her work as rapporteur of several pieces of legislation: a major progressive revision of the Labour Code, a revision of the Protection of Tenants Act, and a new draft law on gender identity.

Anna Grodzka was elected in 2011 from the list of the Palikot Movement. Before her parliamentary career, she was an entrepreneur and LGBT activist. A self-described eco-socialist, she is currently the only serving transgender member of parliament in the world.

Explaining her decision in an interview with Bartłomiej Kozek of the Zielone Wiadomości (Green News), Grodzka said: „The Greens have a crucial role to play. What we need in Poland is a broad, left-wing, democratic alliance able to resist the duopoly of the right – the neoliberal-statist political block consisting of Law and Justice and Civic Platform. I intend to work on building such an alliance.” The potential for change in the political landscape lies in social movements, Grodzka stressed: „It is social movements that have been the bearers of the will of change, they demand more democracy, a fairer economic policy, sustainable development...”

Referring to her former party, Janusz Palikot's Your Movement, Grodzka said: „Your Movement did change the politics in Poland for the better. […] I am quitting, because the party has fulfilled its historic role. I am glad that I could be part of it. But now, more and more people have the feeling that Your Movement has lost direction […] Janusz Palikot needs to decide whether he wants to build a left-wing party in terms of economic policies, or a liberal one.”

Grodzka pointed out several occasions when she was successful in convincing the Your Movement parliamentary group to take a more left-wing direction. In other cases, however, she voted otherwise than her colleagues. She was against the raising of the retirement age to 67 (from 65 for men and 60 for women) and against supporting the Kraków's bid for being the host city of the Winter Olympic Competition in 2022.

In a press release, the leaders of the Polish Greens Agnieszka Grzybek and Adam Ostolski state that Grodzka has been working together with their party on many issues for a long time. They point out at a deep affinity of Grodzka's political positions and Green policies. They also stress that the Green Party remains equally critical of both parties of the parliamentary left, Your Movement and Democratic Left Alliance alike.

More: interview with Anna Grodzka on her joining the Green Party (in Polish)