LATIMES.COM S A
THE WORLD
KRAKOW, Poland —
When Robert Biedron
showed up in this historic
city’s main square to lead a
rally in his bid to be presi-
dent, he was bracing for a
fight in a region that is a
stronghold for a right-wing
government that abhors
everything he stands for.
“An openly gay, atheist,
leftist, anti-coal candidate?”
said Biedron, a former
small-town mayor who is as
charismatic as he is polariz-
ing in his pitch to turn this
overwhelmingly Catholic
nation leftward. “Who would
imagine?”
This is a Poland, after all,
where government leaders
have joined the Catholic
Church to condemn gay
rights as an “attack on chil-
dren.” In the last year, nearly
100 communities have de-
clared themselves free of
“LGBT ideology.” The arch-
bishop of Krakow recently
decried a “rainbow plague”
and complained of “sinister”
environmental activists.
In the middle of this bat-
tle for tolerance and identity
is Biedron, a direct affront to
the long, seemingly inextri-
cable link between church
and state in Poland that has
grown stronger as much of
Europe has become more
secular. About 87% of Poles
are Catholics, the highest
share of any European coun-
try, and more than a third at-
tend Mass weekly. The num-
ber jumps to more than half
among those older than 40.
A former member of Po-
land’s lower house who cur-
rently serves in the Europe-
an Parliament, Biedron is
one of several challengers to
the ruling Law and Justice
party in May elections. He
regularly polls at either a
distant third or close fourth
behind President Andrzej
Duda. But Biedron’s rise
over the years from activist
to presidential contender
has marked a turning point
in this country of 38 million,
as an increasingly vocal mi-
nority opposes the govern-
ment and church’s grip.
During his march
through Krakow’s medieval
town square with dozens of
supporters, Biedron ticked
off a list of promises that
contradicted nearly every
policy in Poland today. The
Catholic Church, he said,
should be taxed and kicked
out of schools, which are now
compelled to give religious
lessons. He proposed that
abortion laws, among the
most restrictive on the
Continent, be relaxed. He
wanted same-sex marriage
legalized and anti-gay at-
tacks counted as hate
crimes.
Such talk startles the
Law and Justice party,
which has railed against
Muslim refugees and aligned
itself with the church to op-
pose growing secularism.
“We want to reshape Europe
and re-Christianize it,” the
prime minister once said in
an interview.
Biedron has also taken
aim at another pillar of Pol-
ish tradition. In a country
that burns more coal than
any in Europe after Ger-
many, he has called for all
mines to be shut down by
2035.
“Will we remain in this
civilization of contempt that
today’s rulers offer us today?
... Will we choose a Poland of
dignity, a civilization of dig-
nity, a civilization that
unites rather than divides?”
he said in Krakow. “We are
afraid the way of the current
government is not toward
Brussels, Paris or Berlin but
toward Minsk, Budapest
and Moscow.”
Biedron, 44, was born in
southeast Poland in the
small town of Rymanow,
near the Slovakian and
Ukrainian borders, and
raised in nearby Krosno, a
city of 47,000. His mother was
in the Solidarity anti-com-
munist movement. His fa-
ther was a communist. Their
son got his first major intro-
duction to politics in 2001,
when he co-founded the
Warsaw-based Campaign
Against Homophobia after
marching in Poland’s first
pride parade when he was- He led the group for eight
years.
In 2011, Biedron joined the
Sejm, Poland’s lower house.
The first openly gay man in
Parliament, he ran under
Palikot, a left-wing, anti-
clerical movement. Three
years later, Biedron was
elected mayor of Slupsk, a
city of 97,000 near the Baltic
coast. He faced critics from
the onset, including those
who called him a careerist
for seeking the job despite
living hundreds of miles
away in Warsaw. In office, he
took a pay cut and traded his
mayoral limo for a bike,
slashed mounting debt, and
pushed the city toward re-
newable energy sources.
He banned bottled water
in City Hall and occasionally
sat in a big red couch in the
middle of town to talk to con-
stituents. Opponents ac-
cused him of staging publi-
city stunts. When he took
down the portrait in his of-
fice of Pope John Paul II — a
national treasure who was
once the archbishop of
Krakow — they said he was
an insult to the church and
Polish pride. Same-sex mar-
riage was illegal, but Biedron
described Slupsk as Po-
land’s Las Vegas for the
number of gay couples who
traveled there to have him
officiate their partnership
ceremonies.
A year ago, Biedron,
whose popularity is strong-
est with with younger Poles,
launched his own party,
Wiosna (“Spring”). Under it,
he was elected to European
Parliament. The party won
19 seats in the Sejm in Octo-
ber. That’s a tiny fraction of
the chamber’s 460 total
seats, and Wiosna’s influ-ence on politics is slim com-
pared with the the ruling
Law and Justice party. It has
a larger stamp under an alli-
ance called Lewica (“Left”)
that includes two additional
progressive parties and
holds a total of 49 seats.
As a presidential candi-
date, he has pushed a plat-
form of upping healthcare
spending, lowering prescrip-
tion drug costs, increasing
pension funds and replacing
religious lessons in schools
with “environmental educa-
tion.” He has also called for
legalizing abortions up to
week 12 of pregnancy. Right
now, they are allowed only in
the cases of rape, incest or
threats to the life of a fetus or
pregnant person.
The backlash has been
harsh.
“Anti-Polish political
whores,” a right-wing maga-
zine, Warszawska, recently
said on its cover over a photo
of Biedron and other politi-
cians who have spoken out
against the government’s
clash with the European
Union over attempts to over-
haul its courts.
Other critics zero in on
his sexuality. At a conference
in February, a Polish Euro-
pean Parliament minister
mocked Biedron’s partner
as a candidate for “first
lady.”
“His main activity as a
minister of parliament was
to represent homosexuals,”
Michal Drewnicki, a Law
and Justice member who is
vice president of the KrakowCity Council, said in an inter-
view. “Robert Biedron repre-
sents extreme left-wing
views on moral issues. He is
unlikely to convince most
Poles because he has lost
credibility.”
Approval ratings are high
for Law and Justice, which
has gotten a boost from the
nation’s historically low un-
employment rates and from
popular welfare programs,
such as a 500-zloty monthly
allowance — about $126 —
for each child in a family. Du-
da’s biggest opponent, Mal-
gorzata Kidawa-Blonska of
the Civic Platform party, is
currently polling around
26% and could force a runoff
election. Biedron, whose
support hovers around 9%,
has attacked Civic Platform,
calling it corrupt and “not
really on the left.”
In interviews, Biedron
said he was influenced by
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers, who surprised U.S. poll-
sters by winning early
Democratic contests de-
spite being the most radical
in the field. Biedron has also
drawn comparisons to
French President Emman-
uel Macron, a long-shot can-
didate who came from out-
side big parties before his
election.
Central and Eastern Eu-
rope are, of course, a differ-
ent picture. The Polish gov-
ernment has modeled itself
in part on Hungary, where
conservative, nationalist
Prime Minister Viktor Or-
ban has consolidated power.In the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, progressive
parties struggle to maintain
influence. The church con-
tinues to wield wide influ-
ence in Poland despite de-
clining popularity in neigh-
boring nations.
Around Krakow, the
capital of one of Poland’s
most conservative provin-
ces, Biedron’s pitch is an es-
pecially hard sell. While
thousands rallied this
month at Duda’s reelection
kickoff in Warsaw, Biedron
drew no more than 100 sup-
porters to a news conference
and rally in the center of
town.
Many were young and
disillusioned with the cur-
rent government.
“When Robert appeared
on the political scene, it gave
me hope,” said Magdalena
Dropek, 37, a campaign or-
ganizer who is an adminis-
trative assistant for Maciej
Gdula, a local Wiosna mem-
ber in the Sejm.
“The homophobia has
been very difficult for us. Our
coming-out stories are polit-
ical, and his candidacy is a
tool for change,” said
Dropek, who is bisexual and
wore a pin depicting rain-
bow and European Union
flags crossed.
Another supporter, Mar-
ciej Kolarski, said he’s ad-
mired Biedron since he was
a mayor.
“It’s just how he ran the
city. He talked to people,
constituents, random peo-
ple, even those against him,”
said Kolarski, 30, a recruiter
at UBS, the Swiss multina-
tional bank. “If we can have
someone who will be doing
the same on a national level,
that would be great.”
At Club Jaszczury, a cafe
and event venue on
Krakow’s central square,
Elzbieta Kowalska cheered
Biedron as he walked on
stage.
A retired police officer of
30 years, she saw her pension
cut two years ago under a
controversial law targeting
officers who served under
communism. Biedron vows
to reverse the rule.
“Robert follows the law,
and wants to withdraw these
kinds of illegal regulations
that our government keeps
putting on us,” said Kowal-
ska, who added she was
heartened by his support of
LGBTQ and secular causes.
In his speech, Biedron
hinted that his chance of
winning was slim. But, he
said, “a year ago it was un-
thinkable” that he would
lead a party with members
in the Sejm, or be a presi-
dential contender. He said
his movement would contin-
ue no matter the results in
the spring.
Listing his anti-church,
anti-coal and pro-LGBTQ
platform, he riffed on an
American campaign to sup-
port his own.
“Make Poland great
again!”Poland hears a new political voice
In the deeply conservative Catholic country, Robert Biedron is the first openly gay presidential candidate
BIEDRON,who serves in the European Parliament, is one of several challengers to the ruling Law and Justice
party. His platform calls for more secular schools, expanded abortion rights and the closure of coal mines.Omar MarquesFor The TimesBy Jaweed Kaleem
KABUL, Afghanistan —
Gunmen opened fire Friday
at a ceremony in Af-
ghanistan’s capital attended
by prominent political lead-
ers, killing at least 32 people
and wounding dozens more
before the two attackers
were slain by police, officials
said.
The Islamic State group
claimed responsibility on its
website for the attack. Af-
ghanistan’s upstart Islamic
State affiliate has declared
war on the country’s minor-
ity Shiites. Many of those at
the ceremony were Shiites
because it was commemo-
rating the 1995 slaying of
Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader
of Afghanistan’s ethnic Haz-
aras, who are mostly Shiite.
The Taliban said they
were not involved in the at-
tack, which came less than a
week after the U.S. and the
group signed an ambitious
peace deal that lays out a
path for the withdrawal of
American forces from the
country.
Interior Ministry spokes-
man Nasrat Rahimi said 32
people were killed and 81
wounded in the attack in the
Dasht-e-Barchi neighbor-
hood of Kabul. The Health
Ministry also reported 32
people were killed but said
58 were wounded. All the
casualties were civilians,Rahimi said.
Opposition leader
Abdullah Abdullah, who is
the country’s chief executive
and was a top contender in
last year’s presidential elec-
tion, was among several
prominent political officialswho attended the ceremony
but left before the attack
and were unhurt.
Several TV journalists
were covering the ceremony
inside a walled compound
when the gunmen began
shooting, and a reporter anda cameraman for a local
broadcaster were among the
wounded.
Karim Khalili, the chief of
Afghanistan’s high peace
council, was delivering a
speech when the gunfire in-
terrupted him. He was not
hurt and later went on TV to
denounce the violence.
Several witnesses said
that amid the panic, mem-
bers of the security forces
guarding the event had fired
at civilians in the crowd.
“Individuals with mili-
tary uniforms who were
there targeted people. There
were casualties, dead and
wounded,” said witness
Ghulam Mohammad, ac-
cording to Associated Press
video.
Another survivor, Noor
Mohammad, told the AP:
“Everyone was running.
Three casualties were on the
ground in front of me. I ran
out of there to save my life.”
After opening fire, the
two gunmen holed up in a
half-finished apartment
building, leading to a five-
hour standoff with security
forces. The gunmen were
eventually killed, and securi-
ty forces were clearing thebuilding, Rahimi said. The
area was cordoned off.
Islamic State claimed re-
sponsibility for the deadliest
attack in Kabul last year,
when a suicide bomber
killed 63 people and
wounded 182 at a wedding.
All were from the Shiite Haz-
ara community.
Any U.S. troop pullout
from Afghanistan would be
tied in part to promises by
the Taliban to fight terror-
ism and Islamic State. Dur-
ing the withdrawal, the U.S.
would retain the right to
continue counter-terrorism
operations in the country.
The Taliban has been
fighting Islamic State mili-
tants in its headquarters in
eastern Afghanistan. U.S.
military officials have said
Islamic State has been de-
graded because of U.S. and
Afghan operations but also
by Taliban assaults.
A U.S. Defense Depart-
ment official told the AP
they were worried that Is-
lamic State was expanding
its footprint into Kunar
province, where the Taliban
knows the terrain and could
be an asset in tracking down
the militants.32 killed in attack on ceremony in Afghan capital
associated press
SECURITY FORCESrespond to an attack on a ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan,
attended by many Shiite Muslims and political leaders. Police killed two gunmen.Rahmat GulAssociated Press