A turnaround is emerging in Poland. According to polls at the ballot box, the centrist and pro-European opposition led by Donald Tusk won a resounding majority in the general elections yesterday, to the detriment of the ultra-conservative nationalist party Law and Justice (PiS), which has been in government for eight years , which was the most voted, but lacked enough support. The Ipsos poll gave 36.8% of the vote to the formation chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and 31.6% to the Civic Coalition (KO) of former liberal centrist Prime Minister Tusk.
The two parties likely to support Donald Tusk, Tercera Via – a coalition of the centrist party Poland 2050 and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), heir to the old peasant party – and the leftist Lewica, won 13% and 8.6%, respectively. In total, therefore, the side of the centrist leader and former president of the European Council would add up to 53.2% of the votes. Confederación, the ultra-libertarian extreme right that sounded like possible support for PiS, scored 6.2%, well below their expectations.
“In my life I have never felt as happy as today with this second place. Poland has won, democracy has won; we expel them from power, it’s the end of this bad period, it’s the end of the PiS Government”, declared Tusk, euphoric after the polls were released. The liberal leader celebrated the forecasts last night in an event at the Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw.
The election Sunday in Poland also included a controversial referendum of four questions – two of which were about immigration – with which the Government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki aspired to capitalize on this polarizing issue. One of the questions contained all the anti-immigration and anti-EU baggage of the current Executive: “Do you support the reception of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in accordance with the mechanism of forced relocation imposed by the European bureaucracy?”. For the result to be valid, there had to be a minimum participation of 50%, therefore, the detractors called not to participate. The initiative was crowned with success, as participation in the consultation was 40%, according to exit polls. The failed referendum represents a severe setback for the current Executive.
The Law and Justice party (PiS) was looking for a third consecutive mandate with which to consolidate the ultra-conservative nationalist government, always on the verge of conflict with Brussels – despite the fact that the majority of Poles are pro-European, as studies indicate – and claiming Polish sovereignty . Donald Tusk leads a centrist and pro-European opposition coalition that aspires to reverse what Kaczynski and his people have done during these eight years. Since returning to power in 2015 (it had already governed during the period 2005-2007), the PiS has been pointed out by observers and by Brussels for undermining democratic checks and balances, politicizing the courts, using public media to promote their own propaganda and promote homophobia. The PiS countered that the reforms aim to make the country and its economy fairer and to eliminate the last vestiges of communism. Law and Justice had aroused support among the population thanks in part to generous social grants.
More than 29 million voters (half a million of them abroad) were called to the polls in this country of 40 million inhabitants to elect the 460 deputies of the Sejm (Lower House of Parliament) and 100 senators. A very relevant figure is the participation, which was 72.9%, according to the survey. “This turnout is probably the highest in the history of the third republic,” Sylwester Marciniak, a member of the National Electoral Commission, said at a press conference last night. All this suggests that these elections were perceived as the most important since the fall of the communist regime, an expression often heard these days in Warsaw.
