Poland’s far right could be the next government’s kingmaker

Pint by pint, Poland’s biggest far-right party is climbing in the polls. Slawomir Mentzen, its new co-leader, is staging lager-fuelled rallies across the country. Sparklers go off as he climbs on stage; his political stand-up routine ridicules all the mainstream parties. With a mostly male crowd cheering him on, the 36-year-old chugs down beers while extolling low taxes and deregulation—and saying surprisingly little about abortion or the eu.

Most non-Poles think of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has governed Poland since 2015, as the epitome of populist nationalism. But there is another party even farther to the right: Confederation. Polls in July found it had roughly doubled its support this year to 15%. The two bigger parties, PiS and the centrist Civic Platform (PO), will almost certainly fall short of a majority in the general election on October 15th. Whichever one comes first will probably need Confederation’s support to form a government.