In the most recent elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Szymon Pogoda won 4,876 votes in the Legnica constituency and, despite running in tenth place, achieved the seventh-best result on the Law and Justice list (six people from that list won mandates).

Adam Lipiński was first on the list, but he has just left the Sejm after becoming vice-president of the National Bank of Poland. As a result, Szymon Pogoda took the vacant seat. The new MP took the oath of office, saying “I swear, so help me God!”.

In 2019, 361 people added the optional “So help me God” to the solemn “I swear”—79% of the new MPs. This included the entire Law and Justice and Confederation groups, as well as almost everyone from the Polish People’s Party. The remaining 97 managed without God: the entire Left group, just 46 from Civic Platform and two from the Polish People’s Party. Thirty-six percent of female MPs and only 15% of male MPs took a secular oath.

Declaring attachment to religion and God is becoming increasingly controversial. Recently, Poland has been living through revelations of child sexual abuse among priests and bishops protecting them. It can safely be said that God did not intervene much when his priests raped children. Defenders of paedophiles live to old age in peace and honour. We wonder how this supernatural being, indifferent to the suffering of children, will help the new MP?! And whether it is really worth asking it for help?!

Szymon Pogoda was a member of the Law and Justice Political Council, the party’s candidate in the election for city mayor, head of the County Office of the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture in Bolesławiec, and, on behalf of the voivode, a member of the social council at the county hospital in Bolesławiec.

Alongside Wiesław Ogrodnik and Jan Russ, he was named by Puls Biznesu in 2017 on the list “Now, F...ing Us”. At the time, the business daily published a list of United Right activists who had taken positions in companies owned by the State Treasury. Three Bolesławiec members of Law and Justice appeared on it, including Szymon Pogoda.

Szymon Pogoda is the second MP from Bolesławiec. The first was Jan Kisiliczyk, who held a mandate as an MP in the 10th-term Sejm from 1989 to 1993.