| Adrian Zandberg | |
| Office: | Co-chair of Left Together |
| Alongside: | Vacant |
| Office1: | Member of the Sejm |
| Constituency1: | 19-Warsaw |
| Term Start1: | 13 October 2019 |
| Term Start: | 27 November 2022 |
| Birth Name: | Adrian Tadeusz Zandberg |
| Birth Date: | 4 December 1979 |
| Birth Place: | Aalborg, Denmark |
| Nationality: | Polish |
| Occupation: | Politician |
| Spouse: | Barbara Audycka-Zandberg |
| Children: | 2 |
| Party: | Left Together (since 2015) |
| Otherparty: |
|
| Height: | 1.98 m |
Adrian Tadeusz Zandberg (born 4 December 1979)[1] is a Polish historian, computer programmer, doctor of humanities, and left-wing politician serving as a member of the Sejm for Warsaw I. He is one of the co-leaders of Left Together.[2] [3]
His parents moved in 1967 from Poland to Denmark, where Zandberg was born in 1979. In 1985 his family moved back to Poland. After studying history at Warsaw University with Anna Żarnowska, he received his doctorate for his dissertation about British and German left-wing social democratic movements. He also studied computer science at a Polish-Japanese computing academy.
As a student he devoted himself to politics. On 14 November 2001, he published an article in the "Gazeta Wyborcza" daily newspaper written together with civil rights activist Jacek Kuroń on the topic of social justice in Poland.[4]
He was elected chairman of the youth wing (Forum Młodych) of the Labour United party (Unia Pracy), was a member of the executive of this party and founded the Federation of Young Socialists (Młodzi Socjaliści).
Zandberg describes himself as a socialist and democratic socialist.[5]
In May 2015, he became one of the founders of Left Together (then known as simply Together), and was elected to the nine-member Board, together with Jakub Baran, Aleksandra Cacha, Alicja Czubek, Maciej Konieczny, Magdalena Malińska, Mateusz Mirys, Katarzyna Paprota, and Marcelina Zawisza.[6]
Zandberg was placed on the first place on Together's Warsaw candidate list of the Sejm elections in October 2015. As a Together party representative during a television debate before the 2015 parliamentary elections, held in Poland on 25 October he represented the smallest of the eight parties. Among other positions, he was the only one of the eight panelists who pleaded for an unconditional acceptance of Syrian war refugees in Poland. Following the debate, some of the media declared him the winner of this discussion, and his appearance at the debate generated more media interest in him and his party in the following days.[7] Zandberg received personally 49,711 votes, but his party won only 3.62 percent of votes, so did not gain any seats in the Sejm.[8]
While some commentators claimed that the increase in popularity of Together was at the expense of the United Left coalition (among others consisting of the Democratic Left Alliance, Your Movement, Polish Socialist Party and The Greens), which also did not win any seats, resulting in neither left-wing party being represented in the new parliament,[9] others, including United Left leader Barbara Nowacka,[10] disagreed with that assessment, pointing out that Together attracted mostly new voters, and few of its supporters had voted for the SLD or Your Movement in previous elections[11] and that the decrease in popularity of United Left's member parties had been a steady process over the years,[12] due to past errors.[13]
Zandberg was subsequently elected a member of the Sejm at the 2019 parliamentary election.[1] In the election, Left Together joined with the Democratic Left Alliance and Spring to form a broad progressive alliance known as The Left, as part of which Zandberg was one of 49 members elected.[14]
In 2022, he became one of the co-leaders of Left Together.
He is married and has two children. Before entering politics, he worked professionally as a computer programmer.[15]
| Sejm | ||||||
| Election | Party | Votes | % | Constituency | Elected? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Together | 49,711 | 4.54 | Warsaw I | ||
| 2019 | The Left | 140,898 | 10.20 | |||
| 2023 | The Left | 64,435 | 3.76 | |||
| European Parliament | |||||||
| Election | Party | Votes | % | Constituency | Elected? | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Left Together | 17,108 | 1.23 | Warsaw | |||
Web site: Interview with Adrian Zandberg (in English) . OpenDemocracy . 10 August 2016 . en . 17 August 2016 . 18 September 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160918225132/https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/alex-sakalis-rosemary-bechler-adrian-zandberg/interview-with-adrian-zandberg-part . dead .