Ireland has become a key battleground for the Polish elections as parties try to woo the young emigrant vote, writes Carl O'Brien
Lamp-posts and street signs aren't groaning under the weight of sloganeering posters. Election literature isn't being bundled in the letter-box. And radio and TV are mercifully free of spittle-flecked political debate. Yet quietly, almost imperceptively, Ireland has become a fiercely contested battleground in Poland's national elections.
Ever since the election starting gun fired just over a month ago, opposition parties have been campaigning to win expatriate votes in what observers say is one of the tightest election campaigns in history.
Opposition leaders and government ministers have visited Dublin in recent weeks on whistle-stop tours, while the election campaign here has crackled and fizzed in the local Polish media for the last month.
The hunger among Poles to have their voice heard in the election has been impressive: some 22,000 Poles living here registered to vote within the space of three weeks.
Tomorrow, thousands are due to vote in polling booths across Dublin, Cork and Limerick.
Frustrated at the pace of economic change at home, and resentful at being forced to look abroad for work, younger Poles in Ireland are determined to have their voice heard. But for a large number of Polish emigrants, this is more than just a choice of political parties. It is, as they see it, a choice between a young country which looks to create new opportunities and prosperity, or an old country still locked in the past.
Piotr Grycuk (28) simmers with anger when he talks about the government's failure to try to improve Poland's economy. A law graduate, he moved to Ireland last year, repeatedly receiving rejection letters for jobs in the legal field.
These days he works in a job as a security guard in the IFSC, earning about €9 an hour, stays in a hostel at night and spends his spare time walking around the streets of Dublin.
"The government parties are living in the past," says Grycuk, who is from Grodek, close to Poland's eastern border. "Our prime minister accused Polish emigrants of being unpatriotic and abandoning our country! Can you imagine an Irish prime minister going to somewhere like Boston and saying all the Irish emigrants are losers? That is what we are dealing with."
Like many young Poles in Ireland, he has had enough of the governing Law and Justice party led by prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose twin brother, Lech, is president of the country.
With its crowing nationalist rhetoric, conservative base, anti-communist witch-hunts and sympathy towards the US, many younger voters see it as a relic of the past.
INSTEAD, MANY YOUNG emigrants in Ireland plan to support the main opposition party, the pro-business Civic Platform, which adopts more liberal positions on social issues and seeks closer integration within the EU.
Grycuk is one of many young emigrants planning to vote for the party tomorrow. "There's lots of bureaucracy and high taxes involved in setting up a business at home. I don't see the Kaczynskis doing anything about it. They're not addressing unemployment, the economy, or anything like that. Instead, they're attacking old communists or trying to divide the country."
Kasia Swiderska (25), who studied languages in Poland and is now working as a shop assistant in Cork, is also eager for political change.
"I think the Law and Justice party in government do not represent us. They are old, conservative and go after the religious vote. I want to see economic change, but I also want a liberal party on social issues," she says. "I'm ashamed at how the Kaczynskis are seen abroad. They are a joke. The prime minister's anti-gay comments when he visited Ireland are just one example."
The Civic Platform's leader, Donald Tusk, has made no secret of trying to win support among Poland's disaffected young emigrants. He visited Ireland and the UK recently, where he love bombed young voters and told them what they wanted to hear.
Whereas the Kaczynski message has been largely tailored to meet the expectations of the country's older and more conservative voters, Tusk appeals to a younger, more ambitious generation that is impatient for change. It also takes a much more conciliatory tone on foreign policy than the Kaczynskis.
At a meeting in Dublin's Liberty Hall attended by hundreds of Poles, he spoke of repeating the "economic miracle" of Ireland in Poland and reforming the tax system to make the country more business-friendly.
He also pledged to abolish double taxation rules which currently affect many Poles living abroad. "I cannot ask you to return now because I know you cannot return as long as we have such a rule," he said. "But we can change this together. By going to vote we can make it possible."
Kazik Anhalt (31), who studied political science in Poland and now works as an organiser with Siptu, helped to bring Tusk over. He says Ireland has become a key part of the Civic Platform's vision for a new Poland.
"We've suffered a haemorrhage of the most qualified professionals leaving our country, so Ireland's story has a lot of attractions for politicians, especially because of the similarity in history," he says.
"Over here, Poles who are planning to go home have learned new skills, they know how business works, they know what makes a successful economy . . . The emigrants in Ireland here have not given up on Poland; they want the best for the country. You can see that in the numbers voting."
Shades of the kind of activism that pierced the Iron Curtain have been evident in recent weeks, as Polish groups led a massive campaign to register voters by setting up stalls outside churches, setting up websites and getting coverage in Polish media.
Much of the work has been driven by groups who do not have any political agenda, apart from ensuring that the voice of emigrants is heard at home. One of those groups is the "MyCork" society, run by Polish volunteers who aim to promote integration between Irish and Poles.
"It is a very big deal for a lot of us," says Stella Skowronska (26), one of the organisers of the election in Cork. "People were denied a vote for so long, people fought hard to win the right to vote, so it is very important for us." She says she feels younger Poles are more interested in politics than younger Irish people, largely because opportunities are not as good in Poland.
"I think younger people in Ireland are more comfortable and don't need to think about politics," she says. "I think we tend to talk about politics in social situations. You don't really hear those topics spoken about among young Irish people."
NOT ALL YOUNG Poles are so connected, though. Many say they are fed up with the corrupt, venal, self-serving, back-biting politics of home. Some even say they won't vote, as they don't plan on returning anytime soon. As if to validate their cynicism, the election campaign has turned into a bitter mud-slinging match as abuse rather than policies are traded publicly.
And, while the result of the election is anyone's guess, what is clear is that the poll could not present a starker choice of political philosophy and style.
In many ways, the campaign is also exposing the gaping fault-line between younger and older Poles and their contrasting views on politics, religion and national identity.
Young Poles, tired of the old ways of political confrontation, now want something else - which might be a dose of consensus and co-operation. "All parties make promises, that is the way," says Kazik Anhalt. "What we want is honest politics . . . We need to look at what works in other countries, like social partnership in Ireland. There is much to learn."
Poland's disaffected young voters across Ireland are busy earning and building for the future. For their country to develop in the same way, they want their leaders to stop arguing about the past and do the same.