page_title: Law and Justice
section_title: Base of support
hierarchical_section_title: Law and Justice / Base of support
caption_attribution_description: English: 2015 Polish parliamentary election, result by counties. Polski: Wybory parlamentarne 2015 zabory powiaty Deutsch: 2015 polnische Parlamentswahlen, Ergebnisse nach Landkreisen.
context_page_description: Law and Justice is a national-conservative, Christian democratic and right-wing populist political party in Poland, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party. With 198 seats in the Polish Sejm and 48 in the Senate, PiS is currently the largest political party in the Polish parliament. The current twenty-five PiS MEPs sit in the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament.
  The party was founded in 2001 by the Kaczyński twins, Lech and Jarosław, as a centrist and Christian democratic party. It was formed from part of the Solidarity Electoral Action, with the Christian democratic Centre Agreement forming the new party's core. The party won the 2005 election, while Lech Kaczyński won the presidency. Law and Justice formed a coalition with the Eurosceptic League of Polish Families and Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland. Jarosław served as Prime Minister, before calling elections in 2007, in which the party came in second to Civic Platform. In these elections PiS lost most of its moderate electorate but attracted voters from its former coalition members and then turned to nationalism and populism.
context_section_description: Like Civic Platform, but unlike the fringe parties to the right, Law and Justice originated from the anti-communist Solidarity trade union (which is a major cleavage in Polish politics), which was not a theocratic organisation. Solidarity's leadership wanted to back Law and Justice in 2005, but was held back by the union's last experience of party politics, in backing Solidarity Electoral Action.
  Today, the party enjoys great support among working class constituencies and union members. Groups that vote for the party include miners, farmers, shopkeepers, unskilled workers, the unemployed, and pensioners. With its left-wing approach toward economics, the party attracts voters who feel that economic liberalisation and European integration have left them behind. The party's core support derives from older, religious people who value conservatism and patriotism. PiS voters are usually located in rural areas and small towns. The strongest region of support is the southeastern part of the country. Voters without a university degree tend to prefer the party more than college-educated voters do. Recently, younger voters have begun to support PiS more than in previous years.
  Regionally, it has more support in regions of Poland that were historically part of western Galicia-Lodomeria and Congress Poland. Since 2015, the borders of support are not as clear as before and party enjoys support in western parts of country, especially these deprived ones. Large cities in all regions are more likely to vote for more liberal party like PO or .N. Still PiS receives good support from poor and working class areas in large cities.
  Based on this voter profile, Law and Justice forms the core of the conservative post-Solidarity bloc, along with the League of Polish Families and Solidarity Electoral Action, as opposed to liberal conservative post-Solidarity bloc of Civic Platform. The most prominent feature of PiS voters was their emphasis on decommunisation.
caption: Law and Justice's main support (dark blue) is concentrated in the south-east of the country (former Russian Partition and Austrian Partition), results of the 2015 Polish parliamentary election
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