In December 2023, a new coalition government led by Donald Tusk – former Polish prime minister, former European Council president – was sworn in, ending the eight-year rule of the right-wing Law and Justice party. Tusk leads the liberal Civic Platform, and his new coalition includes the eclectic Third Way alliance made up of the Polish Peasant party and Poland 2050, along with the smaller New Left party.
Last month marked the first anniversary of the Tusk government taking office, and opinion surveys say that most Poles are disappointed with its performance. A United Surveys poll found that 51 per cent of respondents see the Tusk government negatively (21 per cent very negatively) compared with only 40 per cent who held a positive view (6 per cent very positive). Polling conducted by the CBOS agency also found that the number of Poles describing themselves as supporters of the government fell from 41 per cent in February 2024 to 32 per cent in December, while the number of opponents increased from 34 per cent to 40 per cent over the same period.
Law and Justice denies that it left the country in ruins
Tusk’s government is becoming less popular, but his party is strengthening. According to the Politico poll aggregator, since January the party has been consistently ahead of Law and Justice in opinion surveys and is currently averaging around 35 per cent support compared with 33 per cent for the right-wing opposition. The June European Parliament (EP) election was the first time that Civic Platform came out top in a national poll since 2014. Tusk’s junior coalition partners are the ones suffering. Politico had the Third Way alliance at 17 per cent at the start of last year but it is now only averaging around 10 per cent. Support for the New Left has fallen from 9 per cent at the beginning of 2024 to only 7 per cent. The governing parties would struggle to retain a parliamentary majority if an election were held today.
So why has support for the Tusk government slumped? First, it’s failing to deliver. Civic Platform promised to implement 100 reforms in its first 100 days in office (‘100 konkretów na 100 dni’) but the ‘Demagog’ website estimates that only 15 of these have been fully, and a further 27 partially, realised. For example, the government has postponed radically increasing the annual tax-fee income tax allowance to 60,000 zloties, one of its flagship election pledges.
Some liberal-left voters are particularly frustrated that the government has failed to pass its promised moral-cultural reforms. Speedy liberalisation of Poland’s restrictive abortion law was seen as central to motivating record turnout among younger voters in the 2023 election. Other factors explaining the government’s falling popularity are economic challenges, particularly the fact that in recent months the level of inflation has increased to among the highest in Europe – particularly after the government partially ended a freeze on energy prices.
The government’s remaining supporters argue that Law and Justice left behind a problematic economic and political legacy, together with numerous legal and institutional obstacles. They say that the fact that the government has to ‘cohabit’ with Law and Justice-aligned President Andrzej Duda, and lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to overturn his legislative veto, has acted as a major block to its efforts to implement institutional reforms. In addition to vetoing or threatening to veto key legislation, Duda can also delay the implementation of laws by referring them to a constitutional tribunal for review. This is a powerful body that rules on the constitutionality of Polish laws – but all of its members were appointed by the previous Law and Justice-dominated parliaments and the current government questions its legitimacy.
Law and Justice denies that it left the country in ruins, and even the Polish people who believe that it did might quickly tire of a government that seeks to blame all of its misfortunes on its predecessor. Government critics point out that Duda has only actually vetoed four draft laws and made four further referrals to the constitutional tribunal for so-called ‘preventive control’ (where the legislation does not come into force until the tribunal has reviewed it), while he has allowed over 100 others to pass unhindered. Moreover, the President has not given any indication that he questions the government’s core socio-economic priorities; indeed, some of these, increasing welfare payments for example, are actually a continuation of its predecessor’s policies.
In some cases, Duda has hindered the government’s attempts to replace Law and Justice’s state office nominees where this requires legislation or a presidential sign-off (such as ambassadorial appointments). However, the Tusk administration has used various legal get-arounds and loopholes to, for example, replace the management of the state-owned media and the national prosecutor. In these instances, and in other areas where Duda’s critics say that he is blocking the government from ‘restoring the rule of law’, Law and Justice argues that the presidential veto (or potential veto) is protecting institutions that the government is trying to dismantle, or take control of, unconstitutionally. Government supporters say constitutional safeguards can (indeed, should) sometimes be ignored when trying to restore order to corrupted institutions.
The current government is an ideologically heterogeneous one and this has undoubtedly played a role in the failure to pass some legislation. For example, the Peasant party, the most conservative element of ruling coalition, joined the conservative opposition in voting down a draft law that de-criminalise giving assistance to women receiving abortions and has blocked the adoption of legislation introducing same-sex civil partnerships.
Tusk is skilled at making headline-grabbing announcements that dominate the news agenda, but he has always been sceptical of grand political projects and visions. As a consequence, the Prime Minister has failed to provide his government with any long-term strategy or over-arching set of goals. Critics say that the Tusk government could at least have challenged Duda by provoking vetoes on a number of issues, such as abortion, which could then provide a rallying point for anti-Law and Justice voters to turn out and vote in this summer’s crucial presidential election.
The outcome of this election will have huge implications for whether the ruling coalition can govern effectively during the remainder of its term of office – set to run until autumn 2027. The current front-runners are: Civic Platform deputy leader and Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who lost narrowly to Duda in 2020, and Law and Justice-backed head of the Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki. Trzaskowski’s victory would remove a major obstacle to Tusk’s agenda and allow him to finally undo the remainder of his predecessor’s legacy. If Nawrocki wins, the government can expect continued resistance from the presidential palace for the remainder of its term.
Trzaskowski could face trouble in the upcoming election
There is a growing perception that that the government’s main raison d’etre is a so-called ‘reckoning’ (in Polish: rozliczenie) with its predecessor’s alleged abuses of power. This involves a combination of elite replacement and utilising state instruments to hold the previous government to account. It is, of course, much easier to secure agreement over this agenda than policy within a diverse coalition. The government is using high-profile special parliamentary commissions and a raft of criminal investigations into allegations of misuse of state resources to prosecute figures associated with the previous administration.
Law and Justice supporters portray these actions as a political witch hunt, but the government’s most radical supporters want even more decisive action, especially as the Tusk administration has frequently referred to its predecessors as ‘thieves’ and an ‘organised criminal group.’ However, other voters appear to be losing interest in the ‘reckoning’, and there is even a growing feeling among many of the government’s supporters who agree with the policy that the Tusk administration also needs a more positive and forward-looking agenda.
If creeping disappointment with Tusk’s government becomes more decisive then Trzaskowski could face trouble in the upcoming election. The Polish political scene is deeply polarised and there is little evidence of voters moving in significant numbers between the two large blocs; electoral competition revolves primarily around the extent to which each side can mobilise and de-mobilise their supporters and opponents. Although disillusioned government supporters are unlikely to vote for Nawrocki, some of them may decide to simply sit the presidential election out. In other words, Law and Justice is hoping that the presidential election will be a referendum on the current government, while Civic Platform wants it to be (another) plebiscite on its predecessor.
A version of this piece appeared on Aleks’s blog
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