Barbara Nowacka

Barbara Nowacka
Leader of United Left
In office
21 July 2015 – 3 February 2016
Preceded by office established
Succeeded by office abolished
Personal details
Born (1975-05-10) 10 May 1975
Warsaw, Poland
Nationality Polish
Political party United Left

Barbara Anna Nowacka (born 10 May 1975) is a Polish politician. A left activist in Labour United, and later in Your Movement, in October 2015 she became leader of the United Left coalition for the Polish parliamentary election, 2015, bringing together Labour United, Your Movement, the Democratic Left Alliance, the Greens, and the Polish Socialist Party.

Political career

Born in Warsaw, Nowacka was educated at the University of Warsaw, where she was active as a feminist in the Federation for Women and Family Planning. From 1997 to 2006, she was a member of the youth wing of Labour United and then of the party itself.

In 2014 she stood unsuccessfully in the European elections in Lublin for Europa Plus, supported by Aleksander Kwaśniewski. She went on from that defeat to join Janusz Palikot's Your Movement, becoming a joint leader, and helped to create the United Left, a broad coalition. On 4 October 2015 she was named as its candidate for prime minister if it won the election,[1] and on 17 October she presented the coalition's programme at a conference in Katowice.[2] However, in the elections on 25 October the United Left failed to reach the 8 per cent threshold for obtaining parliamentary representation under Poland's system of election, while Nowacka herself failed to be elected in the Warsaw I parliamentary constituency.

The Polish elections of 2015 were unusual in that most of the major parties contesting them were led by women. While Nowacka was the leader of the United Left, Ewa Kopacz of the governing Civic Platform party was the incumbent prime minister, and Beata Szydło of the opposition Law and Justice party was the main challenger. In the event, Szydło was elected with an overall majority.[3]

In 2016, Foreign Policy magazine included Nowacka, together with Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk of Razem, on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers for their role in organizing protests against a total ban on abortion in Poland.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Poland's United Left puts forward candidate for PM dated 04.10.2015 at the news.pl
  2. ↑ Adam Grabowski, United Left political party election convention in Katowice dated 17 October 2015 at demotic.com
  3. ↑ Monika Scislowska, Women dominate Polish election, with 3 vying to lead country, Associated Press, posted 23 October 2015
  4. ↑ "Foreign Policy's Annual List of the 100 Top Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.