Figure 41. Vote share for key Polish parties and coalitions, 2001-2023. 40 Konfederacja 30 Lewica LPR PiS PO 20 PSL SRP 10 2001 2005 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023 Note: in 2019 and 2023, the figures for PO are those obtained by KO. In 2023, the figure for PSL is that obtained by the Third Way coalition, which included PSL and Polska 2050. In 2011 and 2015, the figures for Konfederacja are those obtained by Nowa Prawica­Janusz Korwin Mikke and KORWiN, respectively. Both parties are ideological and organisational precursors of Konfederacja. KO remains the largest formation in this“democratic coalition”, while the left – which has appeared in various guises over this period – has failed to recover the position it enjoyed during the 1990s, when it seemed set to form one of the focal points of the party system. Its decline after 2001 owed much to allegations of corruption during this period, and to general post-transition“fatigue”. Its subsequent failure to recover can be attributed to the emergence of a new line of competition in the Polish party system after 2005, which created the opportunity for PiS to appeal to voters holding the kind of left-wing economic sympathies that previously swelled the ranks of the left’s support. As such, the Polish party system is one that has been fundamentally shaped by right-wing radicalism and – with two radical-right-wing parties set to form the next opposition – will continue to be shaped by it. If the shift away from liberal democracy came as a shock to observers who had assumed Poland to be one of the more successful cases of post-communist transition to democracy, the successful mustering of pro­democratic forces in the 2023 election suggests bifurcation rather than backsliding. There has been a double shift:(1) the transformation of PiS between 2001 and 2015 from a relatively mainstream conservative party into one of the radical right; and(2) the response of moderate parties of both right and left to PiS’s post-2015 dominance, which has played a significant role in the“re-mainstreaming” of Polish politics. This chapter explores this dynamic. 110 The transformation of the mainstream right and its impact on(social) democracy