May’s vote will, to a large extent, determine whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition government can implement its agenda.
Poland’s presidential election in May will be a make-or-break moment for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose government has struggled to enact policies in the face of opposition from incumbent President Andrzej Duda.
Since it ousted the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party from power more than a year ago, Tusk’s pro-European government has seen its popularity dented by its failure to bring about change.
Duda, of the PiS party, has used his presidential veto to block some of the coalition’s initiatives.
The government has also struggled with internal differences of opinion on issues such as abortion.
Tusk and his allies now hope that a victory for its candidate in May’s election will allow its coalition — which is comprised of the prime minister’s centrist Civic Coalition, the Left and the centre-right Poland 2050 — to govern more easily.
Of the seven candidates running for the presidency, polls suggest that Rafał Trzaskowski, the Civic Coalition’s candidate, and Karol Nawrocki, a historian who is supported by the PiS, are the clear favourites.
Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw who narrowly lost to Duda in the last presidential elections, is currently leading his rival in the surveys.
“What’s at stake is what the rest of the Tusk government’s parliamentary term is going to look like and indeed how long it will continue,” said Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex.
Turning a corner?
A victory for Trzaskowski would allow the Polish government to pursue its agenda without worrying about presidential veto, which Duda has been able to use because the government lacks the necessary three-fifths parliamentary majority to overturn it.
However, some experts say Tusk’s coalition has placed too much emphasis on the presidential veto.
“The government has used the fact that the presidential veto is there as a bit of an excuse,” said Szczerbiak. “The president has vetoed four pieces of legislation, and he’s referred a further four to the Constitutional Tribunal.”
In the meantime, several pieces of legislation, including many proposed by the coalition, have passed.
President Duda has used his veto to block proposals such as prescription-free access to the morning-after pill and official recognition of Silesian as a minority language.
In July last year, Duda also promised that he would veto any legislation that sought to liberalise Polish abortion laws.
If Nawrocki, the PiS-backed candidate, wins in May, he could potentially continue with Duda’s opposition to such reforms.
In an interview with the Polsat broadcaster, Nawrocki said he would not sign any bill to soften Poland’s current abortion laws and that he would veto legislation to legalise same-sex civil unions.
“In Poland, we have two genders,” Nawrocki said in the interview, adding that “as the constitution states, marriage is a union between a woman and a man.”
A Trzaskowski victory, however, would push the coalition government to take action on such issues.
“If Trzaskowski wins, then that really puts the pressure on to deliver on this issue, because that’s one of the big excuses removed,” said Szczerbiak. “They’ll have to do something.”
Coalition struggles
The government has struggled with internal disputes about the most divisive issues in Poland, including same-sex civil unions and abortion rights.
For example, the Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL), the most conservative member of the ruling coalition, has blocked legislation that would legalise same-sex civil unions. It has also, along with conservative opposition parties, voted against a law to decriminalise assistance with abortions.
The coalition has also suffered in-fighting. In October, Razem (Together), a small left-wing party, broke its ties with the government, alleging that it was failing to meet promises that it had made.
“We all voted for change a year ago. We voted with the hope that the repair of the state would begin,” said party leader Adrian Zandberg, who is also running for president.
“After a year, we have to say honestly that this did not happen,” he added.
Polling woes
While many Poles welcomed the new government with open arms as they sought political change, the lack of follow-through on many of the coalition’s electoral promises has left many feeling disillusioned.
Several public opinion polls have shown that more than half of the population now has a low opinion of the Polish government.
In a December poll published by the Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and radio RMF, 51.4% of respondents said they had a negative opinion of the government, while 39.6% had a positive one.
While the conservative opposition seeks to take advantage of this discontent, the coalition hopes to capitalise on the unpopularity of past leadership.
“Whereas Law and Justice want this to be a referendum on the current government, the Tusk government and Trzaskowski want this to be a referendum on the previous government,” said Szczerbiak.
Nawrocki, a political unknown running as an independent with the support of the PiS, is shielded from many criticisms of past leadership.
The May elections will take place while Poland leads the Council of the European Union, a responsibility many see as a key test for the Civic Coalition party.
While the former PiS government frequently clashed with European leadership on issues such as migration and LGBTQ+ rights, the Tusk coalition, led by the former European Council president, has made EU collaboration one of its priorities.
“The way that Donald Tusk is trying to position himself at the moment is, ‘Well, I’m the European leader,’ especially in the face of divided governments in Germany and France,” said Szczerbiak.
Poland hopes to use its EU presidency to bolster European defence capabilities amid the ongoing security threats posed by the war in Ukraine.
The country’s presidential election, which is critical for Tusk’s political future, will take place on 18 May, with a second round to be held on 1 June if no candidate wins more than 50% of the first-round ballots.
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