Strengthening Social Democracy in the Visegrad Countries Poland’s Political Left: Is There Life Beyond Parliament? Michał Syska December 2016 The parliamentary elections of 2015 were a watershed for Polish democracy for two reasons. For the first time since Poland’s political transformation, a single party(the right-wing and populist Law and Justice), rather than a coalition of two or more parties, formed the government. It is also the first democratic parli­ament in Poland not to contain a single political party with a left-wing label. This makes Poland unique not only in the Visegrad region but also across the entire EU. The Democratic Left Alliance(SLD – Poland’s post-communist social democrats), which had been the country’s key left-wing party before the elections, did not made it into the Sejm(parliament). The party formed a coalition with smaller centre-left organisations in the run-up to the elections(including the Greens and Twój Ruch party) and received 7.55% of the vote, whereas the entry threshold for coalitions in Poland is 8%. A new political party established just before the elections, Razem(Together), did not secure any seats in parliament either. Razem, inspired by Spain’s Podemos and Greece’s Syriza, received 3.62% of the vote (the threshold for parties is 5%). The combined result of the United Left(led by the SLD) was assessed as a defeat. In contrast, the result of Razem, a new movement on the left, was seen by experts as a success.