On May 18, Poland will elect a new president.

Since the last presidential election in 2020, the world has turned upside down. The biggest challenge facing Europe is no longer COVID, but Russian aggression.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, millions of Ukrainians have been forced to seek refuge abroad — with Poland becoming the country that took in the largest number of Ukrainian refugees (at least initially).

But will the presence of around one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland influence the election outcome? And if so, how? Could “war fatigue” work in favour of Sławomir Mentzen, the candidate from the far-right, anti-Ukrainian party “Confederation”? Or, on the contrary, could the presence of Ukrainians weaken support for far-right parties?

To answer these questions, we conducted research analysing past elections and data on Ukrainian migrants in Poland.

Ukrainian migration to Poland is nothing new

Following the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, millions of Ukrainians began seeking a better life abroad. Some left due to economic hardship, others chose not to continue working in Russia and instead sought opportunities in Poland.

Our latest research shows that as early as the 2015 parliamentary elections, the presence of Ukrainian labour migrants led to a decline in support for conservative parties that traditionally opposed immigration.

Using the instrumental variables method (commonly used in applied microeconomics), we established a causal link between the presence of Ukrainian migrants and election outcomes in Poland.

A 10-percentage-point (pp) increase in the share of Ukrainian labour migrants in the county was associated with a 3-percentage-point drop in votes for conservative parties — particularly the right-wing “Law and Justice” party.

This result might seem surprising, given that migrants are often accused of “stealing jobs” or exploiting the welfare system. For example, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a Polish far-right MEP, once called refugees “human trash who simply don’t want to work.”

But the data tells a different story: in regions with higher numbers of Ukrainian migrants, unemployment fell and average wages increased. This points to a positive impact on Poland’s labour market — an effect that local voters recognized by supporting parties with more open stances on migration.

By the 2019 election, Ukrainian labour migrants continued to influence local political preferences.

This time, their presence significantly boosted support for parties advocating for greater economic redistribution — such as higher taxes and/or expanded social welfare.

A 10 pp increase in Ukrainian labour migrants led to a 7.5 pp increase in support for such parties.

Over those five years, Poles came to recognise the economic benefits of immigration.

They sought to capitalise on these benefits by supporting parties more focused on social programmes for locals.

Since labour migrants were not entitled to welfare benefits, an expansion of those programs meant local residents could maximise gains from the economic growth that migration helped bring about.

The next parliamentary elections in 2023 came after the start of the full-scale invasion.

By that time, in addition to the labour migrants already living and working in Poland, the country had taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. In these elections, neither the labour migrants nor the refugees had a significant effect on support for either conservative or left-leaning economic parties.

Conservatives — especially “Law and Justice” — despite previously opposing refugees, supported the acceptance of Ukrainians after the invasion began.

This stance reduced pro-Ukrainian voters’ reasons to turn away from these parties. Refugees, unlike labour migrants, were eligible for welfare benefits, which neutralised the previous incentive to support socially-oriented parties.

However, radical anti-Ukrainian parties saw major losses in areas with higher numbers of Ukrainian migrants. A 10 pp increase in labor migrants reduced support for such parties by 2 pp, while the same increase in refugees led to a 20-percentage-point drop in support.

From the very first days of the war, Ukrainian refugees actively organised pro-Ukraine rallies and encouraged Poles to support Ukraine — efforts that may have translated into meaningful political outcomes.

These findings align with American psychologist Gordon Allport’s “contact hypothesis”, which suggests that prolonged interaction with members of another group improves intergroup relations.

In our case, regions with larger Ukrainian populations — and thus more direct contact between Ukrainians and Poles — saw less support for far-right ideologies compared to areas where Poles had little to no personal contact with Ukrainians. In these regions, it became harder for far-right parties to push anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

That rhetoric finds stronger support only in areas with relatively few Ukrainian refugees — places where most Poles learn about Ukraine only through the media or political statements, rather than through direct experience.

While the outcome of the upcoming presidential election remains uncertain, the presence of one million Ukrainian refugees may reduce the chances of anti-Ukrainian forces and positively influence the political choices of Polish voters.

This article was produced with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation as part of the “European Renaissance of Ukraine” initiative. The content reflects the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the European Union or the International Renaissance Foundation.

Source: European Pravda.

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