Democratic Left Association
The Democratic Left Association is a Polish political association created by the former New Left members who left the coalition and parliamentary group of The Left after a conflict with the coalition's leadership. The association was formed with the intention to continue the legacy of the Democratic Left Alliance, while maintaining close ties with New Left's ideological rivals — the Labour Union. Jerzy Teichert, a former local activist and a former member of SLD was selected as the president of the association, while Robert Kwiatkowski, an MP elected on the list of The Left, became the vice-president. The party seeks to represent an alternative to "the western left" and the "rainbow flag", and dismisses other left-wing parties for committing to social progressivism on issues like LGBT and abortion, as well as immigration.
The party started as the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Left formed by Robert Kwiatkowski, Andrzej Rozenek, its chairwoman Joanna Senyszyn, and the deputy speaker of the Senate Gabriela Morawska-Stanecka, who, after leaving New Left, formed the Polish Socialist Party parliamentary group from 14 December 2021 to 6 February 2023, and in 2022 they established the Democratic Left Association, following in the tradition of the Democratic Left Alliance. When the Polish Socialist Party chapter was founded in 2021, Andrzej Rozenek and Senyszyn became members of the party. They left PPS in August 2023. In December 2025, Senyszyn created New Wave.
History
Origins
The party dates back to the conflict within the Democratic Left Alliance in 2021. The party's leader, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, was increasingly opposed by the regional branches of the party for his cooperation with Law and Justice as well as his talks with the social liberal party Wiosna for a merger. Most members of the Democratic Left Alliance opposed this decision, and when Czarzasty called for a party convention to announce the merger, the regional branches voted the convention down. Ultimately, the merger still took place despite the opposition. Democratic Left Alliance dissolved itself in 2021 to become the New Left together with Wiosna.The MPs that came to create the Democratic Left Association were known as the 'reformist' faction within the SLD. They opposed Czarzasty's leadership and his decision to merge Wiosna, which Czarzasty had been pursuing since 2019. Between July and September 2021, Czarzasty sought to suppress this faction, given that it was blocking the merger with Wiosna. The reformist faction was also supported by influential figures within the SLD, such as former prime minister Leszek Miller and former president Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who both criticized Czarzasty's leadership. Consequently, Czarzasty suspended Tomasz Trela, Andrzej Rozenek, Bogusław Wontor and Joanna Senyszyn from the party. Czarzasty also had an open rivalry with Krzysztof Podgórski and Robert Kwiatkowski.
According to Przegląd, Czarzasty had to force the merger despite the opposition within the party, writing: "SLD activists who did not agree to the merger of the SLD with Wiosna were "suspended, thrown out or were not allowed into the new party's headquarters". The Warsaw Council of the SLD, which was against it, was simply dissolved. As a result, several hundred SLD activists from Warsaw alone surrendered their party cards." In December 2021, the MPs of the Democratic Left Alliance who protested the decision entered the Polish Socialist Party and formed their own parliamentary group that came to be the Democratic Left Association.
Foundation
The Democratic Left Association was registered on 7 March 2022. Jerzy Teichert became its chairman and MP Robert Kwiatkowski its secretary general. The party was founded by the MPs who were forming the parliamentary circle of the Polish Socialist Party since December 2021. Its co-founder was Joanna Senyszyn, the vice-chair of the Polish Socialist Party's Supreme Council. Its activities were inaugurated on 2 June 2022. It presented itself as a "democratic association for truly leftist ideals" and denounced the leader of Democratic Left Alliance Włodzimierz Czarzasty for his decision to dissolve the party and merge with Wiosna to form the New Left. The Democratic Left Association noted that the SLD had 24,000 members and had existed for 20 years, whereas Wiosna was a recent party that had about 500 members, and yet it nevertheless forced SLD to compromise its ideals. It accused Czarzasty of "lack of democracy, tyranny, unfair division of power" within the SLD.Coalition with PPS
After 23 days, the party signed, similarly to the PPS, a cooperation agreement ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections together with Labour Union, Social Democracy of Poland, Freedom and Equality, as well as, among others, the association Working People's Movement and the activists of the former party Feminist Initiative, advocating for a ‘broad electoral agreement of the democratic opposition’. The Democratic Left Association includes, among others, former MP Zbyszek Zaborowski. and a councillor of the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly, former senator Mirosław Lubiński.At the time, the Democratic Left Association also considered a merger with Labour Union in order to revive the historical Democratic Left Alliance – Labour Union coalition. The party was later joined by the MEP and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller and Bogusław Wontor. In November 2022, Democratic Left Association organized a 20th anniversary of the Democratic Left Alliance – Labour Union together with the leading Labour Union and Democratic Left Alliance politicians of the 2000s, such as Marek Pol, Waldemar Witkowski and Leszek Miller. Here the party was also described by the media as a danger to the New Left from the left.
Break with PPS
The association has set itself the goal of creating an alternative to New Left. By July 2022, Democratic Left Association was in an electoral coalition together with the Polish Socialist Party and Labour Union. The parties were planning to run together under the banner of the Polish Socialist Party. The SLD-PPS-UP coalition polled 2.5% in September 2022. On 5 February 2023, the executive council of the Polish Socialist Party withdrew from the agreement and instead passed a resolution on the party's intention to run together in the 2023 Polish parliamentary election with New Left as well as Left Together and Labour, and withdrew its consent for the Democratic Left Association parliamentary group to use the PPS name and symbol.The Polish Socialist Party explained that its decision was motivated by the Democratic Left Association, formally representing the parliamentary group of the PPS, was too autonomous and already acted as a de facto separate party; it also added that this decision was taken in order to enter the electoral lists of New Left. On the same day, the MPs of the circle – with the exception of Wojciech Konieczny, who became an independent senator – therefore transformed the PPS parliamentary group into the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Left. In March 2023, the new party was banned from using the logo of the old SLD, and Joanna Senyszyn, the party's co-founder, was removed from the Supreme council of the PPS. In August 2023, members of the Democratic Left Association formally resigned their membership in the PPS, and formally renamed their parliamentary circle to Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Left.
2023 election
In mid-August 2023, Senator Gabriela Morawska-Stanecka left the club and joined the parliamentary club of the Civic Coalition. The party then abandoned its intention to create a broad left-wing coalition for the election, and instead wanted to unite left-wing parties to negotiate their way into the electoral lists of the Civic Coalition. This decision was harshly criticized by other left-wing movements, including New Left, whose MEP Krzysztof Śmiszek stated that the Democratic Left Association has become "social centre-right instead of social democracy". In response, the party wrote that the left should no longer consider centre-right Civic Platform its enemy, and called out the New Left's eventual cooperation with it.In the 2023 Polish parliamentary election, only Andrzej Rozenek ran among the members of the party, but did not win a seat in parliament. Joanna Senyszyn registered her own committee for the Senate election, arguing that the Senate Pact 2023 did not allow the Democratic Left Association to democratically negotiate placing its candidates on the united opposition lists. However, the electoral commission rejected the registration of her candidacy. In September 2023, Senyszyn was sued for calling the cursed soldiers "not soldiers, but gangs of social outcasts, idlers and frustrated individuals waiting for World War III." Zbyszek Zaborowski ran unsuccessfully for the Sejm from the KO list on behalf of the Democratic Left Association, as did Andrzej Rozenek, while Gabriela Morawska-Stanecka was re-elected to the Senate on behalf of the Civic Coalition. The party actively campaigned for its candidates on the KO lists, promoting policies such as grain embargo on Ukraine, embargo on imported coal, recognition of the Silesian language, restricting logging of Polish forests, restricted immigration, and modification of the Family 500+ program to provide more for the poorest and less for the wealthier families.
2024 and 2025 elections
On 12 February 2024, the Court of Appeal in Warsaw dismissed the New Left's complaint regarding Democratic Left Association using the logo of the Democratic Left Alliance. In light of the court's decision, the National Electoral Commission accepted the party's logo on 15 February. The party started using the logo of the Democratic Left Alliance the same month.The party stated its intention to run in the 2024 Polish local elections independently. The party fielded its own list to the voivodeship sejmiks. It ran under the name of "SLD", and used the logo of the Democratic Left Alliance. It won 13,169 votes and no seats. New Left, which lost roughly 25% of its seats and popular vote compared to the SLD's performance in the 2018 Polish local elections, blamed Democratic Left Association for splitting the left-wing electorate.
In January 2025, the chairwoman of the Democratic Left Association, Joanna Senyszyn, declared her candidacy for the 2025 Polish presidential election. She became the official candidate of the party in the election, and on 27 March she gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot box. On 11 April 2025, Senyszyn participated in a presidential debate in Końskie, where she wore the badge of the Democratic Left Association. Senyszyn declared herself to be the official candidate of the Democratic Left Association, calling it "the true left". She stated that the help of the Democratic Left Association allowed her to gather enough signatures to qualify for the election.
In the first round of the presidential election, Senyszyn won 1.09% of the popular amount, amounting to over 200,000 votes. After the first round, the Democratic Left Association endorsed Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the Civic Platform, for the second round. On 25 May, Senyszyn participated in a march in Warsaw in support of Trzaskowski, where she gave his wife, Małgorzata Trzaskowska, her iconic red corals, asking her to take them to the presidential palace and offering Trzaskowski her endorsement.
After the election, on 3 June, Senyszyn announced the creation of a new socio-political association, "Senyszyn's Red Corals". The association is to be democratic and be based on her young followers that she gained in her presidential run. She criticized both Magdalena Biejat of The Left and Adrian Zandberg of Razem parties, calling them "a certain left-wing faction whose slogan is: “PiS, PO – pure evil”". Senyszyn stressed that she wants to create a left which would not believe "that such an equation should be made".
In September 2025, Senyszyn founded her new party, which came to be named New Wave rather than Red Corals. It was registered on 8 December 2025; similarly to the Democratic Left Association, New Wave criticized the New Left as "ideologically spineless" and Senyszyn denounced its leader Włodzimierz Czarzasty as an "authoritarian sexist", but unlike the Democratic Left Association, New Wave is to focus on anti-clericalism, feminism, as well as LGBT and animal rights. Despite the creation of New Wave, Democratic Left Association continues to exist as a political association.