What will happen in Poland’s local elections?

One would expect the newly elected governing parties to do well, and recently defeated right-wing opposition to struggle, in local elections held in the aftermath of last October’s parliamentary election. But with the first serious conflicts emerging within the ruling coalition, the respective vote shares secured by the eclectic agrarian-liberal centrist ‘Third Way’ and the radical right could be pivotal in determining a number of closely-fought regional elections.

First test for the new government

On April 7th, Poles will vote for thousands of councilors and local mayors in parish, county and regional elections; with second round run-offs two weeks later where no mayoral candidate has secured more than 50% of the vote. These local elections were scheduled for last autumn but postponed for half-a-year, officially to avoid a clash with last October’s parliamentary poll. Although they have been extremely low key, as the first major test of public opinion since the parliamentary election which ended eight years of rule by the right-wing Law and Justice (PIS) party, they will be one of the most important political events of the year.

Last December, a new coalition government led by Donald Tusk, who had served as Polish prime minister between 2007-14 and then European Council President from 2014-19, was sworn in. Mr Tusk is leader of the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO) which, after an eight-year interlude in opposition, once again became the country’s main governing party. The new coalition also includes the eclectic ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga) alliance – which itself comprises the agrarian-centrist Polish Peasant Party (PSL), and the liberal-centrist ‘Poland 2050’ (‘Polska 2050) grouping formed to capitalise on TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia’s strong third place in the 2020 presidential election – and the smaller ‘New Left’ (Nowa Lewica) party, the main component of a broader ‘Left’ (Lewica) electoral alliance. Last November, Mr Hołownia was also elected to the high profile post of speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower parliamentary chamber, which he is using to promote himself in anticipation of a summer 2025 presidential bid.

Tough challenge for Law and Justice

The local elections will be a particularly tough challenge for Law and Justice. Parties that have recently lost an election often perform badly in so-called ‘second order’ polls held in its immediate aftermath, because their de-moralised supporters are much less likely to turnout and vote. According to the ‘Politico Europe’ aggregator of Polish opinion polls, Law and Justice is currently averaging around 30% support compared with 35% in the parliamentary election. A second consecutive election defeat would exacerbate the already-deep internal divisions within the party and further de-motivate its activists ahead of the June European Parliament (EP) poll, the next critical electoral test.

Local elections have always been difficult ones for Law and Justice because much of the media focus goes on the high-profile mayoral contests in Poland’s larger towns and cities where the party has no prospect of winning. In fact, as the only local government tier contested mainly on national party lines, the aggregated vote share in elections to the 16 regional authorities is the key barometer of party support. Regional councils also play an important role in distributing EU funds and are a key source of local party patronage.

In the previous 2018 local elections, Law and Justice won 34% of the vote at this tier with an outright majority in six authorities, and secured control of a further two thanks to a defection in one and coalition with non-party independents in another. However, because Law and Justice has weak coalition potential if the party does not win outright majorities it will struggle to find partners to retain control of these authorities, even it if remains the largest party. In 2014, for example, Law and Justice won the most seats in six regional assemblies but only ended up controlling one, its Podkarpacie stronghold. This time, Law and Justice will do very well to retain control of even three regions.

Its only realistic potential local coalition partner is the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) party which is fighting the elections on a joint list with the non-party independents. However, Confederation is not an especially reliable partner and will struggle anyway to secure representation in many assemblies. Although the formal electoral threshold is 5%, given the size of the polling districts parties need to win around 10% to secure representation, ideally nearer 12% to be sure. The Confederation’s 7% in October’s parliamentary election was extremely disappointing; at one point polls suggested that it could secure well over 10% and emerge as the ‘kingmaker’ in the new parliament. However, it appears to have recovered some ground and, according to ‘Politico Europe’, is currently averaging around 10% again.

First serious conflicts within the governing coalition

One would also expect the parties that were victorious in last October’s parliamentary poll to still be enjoying a post-election honeymoon and do well in local elections held so soon after their victory. Sure enough, ‘Politico Europe’ shows that, for the first time in years, Civic Platform has overtaken Law and Justice in the polls with 33% support. However, at the same time the first serious conflicts have also started to emerge within the governing coalition. First, Civic Platform suddenly rejected the idea of standing a joint candidates list with the ‘Left’ for the regional assemblies, no doubt more confident that it could defeat Law and Justice single-handedly. Given the de facto 10% electoral threshold this is a problem for the ‘Left’ which is averaging around 9% support in the polls (roughly the same as it secured last October).

Civic Platform’s unexpected move meant that, in order to raise its profile, the ‘Left’ had to find ways of differentiating itself from its governing partners, which it did by focusing on the highly contentious and divisive issue of abortion. In Polish politics, the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ refer more to attitudes towards moral-cultural questions than socio-economic policy, and abortion has become one of ‘Left’’s signature issues. Moreover, many commentators felt that the huge protests against the Polish constitutional tribunal’s October 2020 ruling, that abortions on the grounds of serious and irreversible birth defects are unconstitutional, was a key turning point in the previous Law and Justice government’s slump in support from which it never really recovered and which culminated in its election defeat. As a consequence, the abortion issue has assumed huge symbolic importance for many of the new government’s supporters who hoped that it would introduce legislative changes to expand access to it.

However, although there is broad consensus within the ruling coalition that the tribunal’s ruling should be reversed, it is very divided on what precise form that should take. Both Civic Platform and the ‘Left’ have proposed bills that would not only reverse the near-total ban but go even further liberalising the law to allow abortion, more-or-less on demand, up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. But the ‘Third Way’ wants a return to the much more restrictive so-called abortion ‘compromise’ that existed before the tribunal ruling, together with a national referendum on the issue. The Peasant Party’s moderate social conservatism on moral-cultural issues reflects its predominantly rural and small-town electoral base, while Mr Hołownia is a practising Catholic (albeit a very liberal one) who has expressed opposition to abortion on demand in the past.

A new phase of confrontation over this issue began when Mr Hołownia announced that parliamentary work on legislation aimed at liberalising the abortion law would not begin until after the first round of voting in the local elections. He argued that this was necessary to avoid the legislation becoming a victim of the ongoing election campaign because, he claimed, if parliament proceeded with the various abortion bills before polling day there was a danger that both sides would feel under pressure to take tough positions and all of them would be rejected. Mr Hołownia’s announcement was, however, met with anger from the ‘Left’ which claimed that he was delaying the debate because some ‘Third Way’ election candidates, especially those standing for the Peasant Party, were afraid of offending local parish priests who remain influential civil society actors in smaller towns and rural areas.

Is the ‘Third Way’ losing support?

Interestingly, in a swipe at his coalition partners, Mr Tusk called upon Civic Platform supporters who had voted tactically for the ‘Third Way’ in the parliamentary election to return to the fold and vote in line with their beliefs in these local polls. In fact, having seen a post-election bounce in support, the ‘Third Way’ seems to be slipping back to around, or even a little below, the 14% that it achieved last October. The Peasant Party always performs much better in local elections due to its strong grassroots organisational base together the fact that turnout in the rural areas that form the bedrock of its support is always higher in these polls, but ‘Poland 2050’ will find it more difficult given that it lacks a local membership base.

Consequently, the ‘Third Way’ has also been trying to find ways of shoring up its support, particularly among the business community by making changing the calculation of health insurance premiums for entrepreneurs a condition of it remaining in the governing coalition. In the event, Civic Platform finance minister Andrzej Domański announced a partial reform but which the ‘Left’ has criticised for mainly benefiting the better-off. In raising this issue, the ‘Third Way’ was no doubt conscious that some of the entrepreneurs who voted for it last October had at one point intended to support the ‘Confederation’, and that these voters could switch back. Indeed, in a number of current Law and Justice-run regional assemblies the election is on a knife edge and the ‘Third Way’ and ‘Confederation’’s respective vote shares could determine who ends up controlling them. Even the election of a single Confederation councilor could prove pivotal in some regions.

A dry-run for the next presidential election?

The most prestigious and high profile local poll is the Warsaw mayoral election. Civic Platform incumbent Rafał Trzaskowski – who narrowly lost the 2020 Polish presidential election, and is seen by many commentators as the party’s most likely candidate in the 2025 race – remains the undisputed favourite. However, the scale of Mr Trzaskowski’s victory will also be important and anything less than a repeat of his decisive 2018 first round victory will be seen as a disappointment.

Law and Justice are standing the former regional governor of Mazowsze, which encompasses Warsaw, Tobiasz Bocheński who is very presentable but has no chance of winning. Notwithstanding the fact that he is a political unknown and Law and Justice is on the defensive, as is the case with most Polish cities Warsaw is a liberal-left heartland. In fact, Mr Bocheński’s candidacy is seen as a way of building his national profile ahead of next year’s presidential election, presumably to repeat the Law and Justice’s manouvre of selecting a fresh face, which worked so well in 2015 when current party-backed President Andrzej Duda won a shock victory over the Civic Platform-backed incumbent. So a good result for Mr Bocheński would be securing around 30% and forcing Mr Trzaszkowski into a run-off.

This time, Mr Trzaskowski also faces a more significant challenge on his left flank from Magdalena Biejat from the radical left ‘Together’ (Razem) party (part of ‘Left’ electoral alliance but not the governing coalition), who represents the Warsaw district in the Senate, Poland’s less powerful second parliamentary chamber. It is in Mr Trzaszkowski’s interests to downplay Ms Biejat’s prospects and talk up Mr Bocheński’s, because such a polarising dynamic increases his chances of consolidating and mobilising the anti-Law and Justice vote around his candidacy, as he did so successfully last time around. Interestingly, the ‘Third Way’ has decided to back Mr Trzaskowski rather than stand their own candidate which, given that he is one of Mr Hołownia’s main presidential election rivals, may prove to be a major strategic error.

How deep is the crisis in Poland’s Law and Justice party?

While Poland’s right-wing opposition faces a serious crisis following its loss of office, it retains many important political assets and most of the ferment is on the party’s fringes rather than at its core. But the situation is a dynamic one and further election defeats could bring things to a head.

Law and Justice’s political assets

Last December, after eight years in office, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party lost power following its October parliamentary election defeat. Although it emerged as the largest political grouping with 35% of the votes, Law and Justice only secured 194 seats falling well short of the 231 required for an overall majority in the Sejm, the more powerful lower parliamentary chamber. For sure, the party retains a number of important political assets, including access to substantial state party funding, a relatively well-developed grassroots organisational network, and the largest ever opposition legislative caucus in post-communist Poland, comprising a large number of experienced parliamentarians.

The party also has a strong social base with distinctive and clearly defined socio-demographic constituencies that reflect deeper ideological and cultural divisions within Polish society. The party’s elites are united by a powerful integrative ideological narrative rooted in a conservative-national project at the heart of which is the need for the radical reconstruction of the Polish state. This, together with its programme of generous social transfers, has provided the party with a sense of cohesion and purpose and bound it closely to its core voters.

Until summer 2025, the new coalition government, led by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO) grouping, has to ‘cohabit’ with a Law and Justice-aligned President, Andrzej Duda, and lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to overturn his legislative veto. All 15 members of the constitutional tribunal, a powerful body that can strike down laws if it deems them to be unconstitutional, were elected by the Polish parliament during Law and Justice’s term of office.

Difficult local elections

However, Law and Justice is losing support, currently averaging around 30% according to the ‘Politico Europe’ aggregator of Polish opinion polls, behind Civic Platform on 33%. With important local elections coming up in April and to the European Parliament (EP) in June, some commentators say the party faces one of its serious crises. Local elections have always been difficult ones for Law and Justice because much of the media focus goes on the high-profile mayoral contests in larger towns and cities where the party has virtually no prospects of winning.

In fact, as the only local government tier contested on national party lines, the aggregated vote share in elections to the 16 regional authorities is the key barometer of party support. Regional councils also play a major role in distributing EU funds and are a key source of local party patronage. In autumn 2018, Law and Justice won 34% of the vote in this tier with an outright majority in six authorities, and secured control of a further two thanks to a defection in one and coalition with non-party independents in another.

The problem for Law and Justice is that it has weak coalition potential, so if it does not win outright majorities will struggle to find partners to retain control of these authorities, even if it remains the largest party. In 2014, for example, Law and Justice won the most seats in six regional assemblies but only ended up controlling one of them, the Podkarpacie region. This time, its only viable local coalition partners are the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) party and non-party independents, both of whom are unreliable and will struggle to secure representation at this tier. Law and Justice will do very well to retain control of even three regions, and in a nightmare scenario could actually lose its Podkarpacie stronghold.

Focusing on the wrong issues?

Parties that have just suffered a parliamentary election defeat often perform badly in so-called ‘second order’ polls held in its immediate aftermath. Their supporters are de-moralised and much less likely to vote than those of the victorious parties that are still enjoying a post-election honeymoon. Moreover, since the new government was installed, Law and Justice has spent a lot of time focusing on issues that consolidate its already-convinced hard core supporters (and, even then, largely the most loyal ones) rather than broadening its appeal.

For example, the party expended a great deal of energy defending two former ministers, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, who in January were jailed for abuse of power while heading up the Polish central anti-corruption bureau (CBA) in the mid-2000s. They then had their parliamentary mandates revoked, before being released following a presidential pardon. Law and Justice tried to use their case to argue that the new government was running roughshod over the Constitution and the ‘rule-of-law’, citing the fact that it refused to recognise as legitimate an earlier presidential pardon, and rulings by a supreme court chamber and the constitutional tribunal favourable to the two politicians. The party also cited what it argued were other examples of the new government acting illegally and unconstitutionally, including: its takeover of the state-owned media; the removal of senior prosecutors appointed by the previous government; and its plans not to recognise judges and constitutional tribunal members installed under the previous administration. (The new government says that its actions are legal and that the earlier appointees were nominated improperly).

The problem for Law and Justice is that opinion polls show that a clear majority of Poles feel that Mr Kamiński and Mr Wąsik were right to be convicted and deprived of their parliamentary mandates. For sure, even some Law and Justice critics feel uneasy about the legality and constitutionality of certain of the new government’s measures to unravel its predecessor’s legacy and replace its elite appointees. However, the government’s most controversial measures are only really unpopular among the Law and Justice hardcore, and the new administration’s supporters appear to have largely accepted its ends-justify-the-means logic: that they sometimes need to take legally questionable short-cuts to ‘re-build democracy’ and ‘restore the rule-of-law’; as, apparently, does the EU political establishment and much of the international opinion-forming media (even though it has echoes of Law and Justice’s ‘transitional justice’ justificatory logic for its own earlier systemic reforms and elite replacement policies). Moreover, as the current governing parties found when they were in opposition, it is difficult to mobilise voters around such constitutional issues because Poles often find them too abstract and complicated, and have anyway got used to politicians accusing their opponents of violating the Constitution and ‘rule-of-law’.

Divisions within the right-wing camp

The post-election period has also seen a weakening of Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński’s standing as the dominant figure on the Polish right. Mr Kaczyński was widely admired, even among his critics, as a skillful and effective political visionary and strategist, and his continued hegemony provided a crucial source of unity and cohesion within the right-wing camp. However, Law and Justice’s election defeat dealt a severe blow to Mr Kaczyński’s authority and he is clearly starting to show his age and often too easily provoked into making highly controversial and provocative statements. Some right-wing politicians and commentators have openly called for him to resign. However, all of the proposed alternatives appear to lack his authority to keep the party united. So last month Mr Kaczyński announced that that he would run again for the party leadership having previously said that he would stand down at its next congress, scheduled for 2025.

Another problem is that there does not seem to be any co-ordination between Law and Justice and the presidential palace. This is in spite of the fact that Mr Duda is currently the most powerful right-wing politician in Poland, and remains both emotionally and intellectually committed to key elements of the party’s radical state reform programme. More broadly, Mr Duda’s critics argue that he is not interested in, nor capable of, high level political strategising and manouvering. Rather than having a well thought-through and coherent plan on how to set the political agenda, Mr Duda is, they say, constantly on the back-foot simply reacting to the new government’s initiatives.

On top of this, there are concerns within Law and Justice about possible revelations that might emerge from a special parliamentary commission set up in January to investigate allegations that the previous government mis-used the Pegasus spyware programme to eavesdrop on its opponents. The commission is one of three high-profile parliamentary investigations initiated by the new government as part of a so-called ‘reckoning’ (rozliczenie) with the Law and Justice’s administration’s alleged abuses of power. While experience suggests that Poles often become quickly bored with these kinds of attempts at settling accounts with previous governments, this particular commission has the most potential to cut-through through politically because of allegations that the Law and Justice government used the spyware system against its own ministers and other leading figures within the party. For its part, hoping that the issue will run out of steam, Law and Justice denies these allegations vigorously and argues that its use of the Pegasus system was legal and served to bolster Poland’s security.

The new government’s weaknesses

Although many Law and Justice leaders know that adopting a combative and un-comprising approach was ultimately a dead end for the party, they also felt that party’s short-term priority had to be maintaining unity and cohesion within its own ranks rather than reaching out to a broader electorate. However, Law and Justice’s recovery depends ultimately on convincing Poles that the new government’s policies will have negative consequences for them personally. Not only has concentrating on issues where it is on the wrong side of public opinion meant that the party has avoided difficult internal debates about how it can renew itself and reach out to new voters, it has also over-shadowed the party’s message on more salient socio-economic questions where the new government is potentially much more vulnerable. For example, polling shows strong cross-party support for Law and Justice’s programme of large, flagship state investment projects such as the planned Central Communication Port (CPK) mega-airport and rail hub between Warsaw and Łódź, which the new government has paused while it is conducting an audit.

The government is also vulnerable to the charge that it is failing to deliver on all of its election promises such as: radically increasing the annual tax-fee income threshold to 60,000 złoties, and reducing health insurance premiums for businesses. One government minister suggested that the one hundred promises that Civic Platform pledged to fulfill in its first 100 days in office (‘100 konkretów na 100 dni’) were not meant to be taken literally! Indeed, although the new government came to office following a record turnout in a post-communist Polish election, there is also evidence of a lack of enthusiasm for it. For example, a February poll by the Ipsos agency for the liberal-left OKO.press portal found that only 38% of respondents said the election had changed Poland for the better, 32% for the worse and 23% that nothing had changed.

Further defeats could bring things to a head

Law and Justice clearly faces its most serious crisis for many years and every scenario is possible, including the party imploding and not surviving in its current form. However, there is little immediate prospect of a major split as, for the moment, most of the ferment is taking place on Law and Justice’s fringes rather than at its core. The leadership’s current strategy is based on maintaining the right-wing camp’s internal unity and cohesion, and particularly retaining enough parliamentary support to uphold presidential vetoes single-handedly. The new government’s radical ‘reckoning’ policies have actually bound the core of the party somewhat closer together. Nonetheless, the situation on the Polish right is a dynamic one and could come to a head if anticipated local, and probably EP, election defeats further undermine Law and Justice’s cohesion and morale ahead of next summer’s really crucial presidential poll.

Is Poland heading for a constitutional crisis?

Poland’s bitter political and systemic conflict has been exacerbated by the fact that the two sides appear to increasingly operate within different legal orders. Although the government has resolved this legal dualism for now by using the state apparatus to enforce its will, such a stand-off could continue at least until the current President’s term of office ends in 2025.

Mr Duda’s disputed pardons

Since the new coalition government – led by Donald Tusk, leader of the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO) party – took office last December Poland has found itself mired in a bitter political and systemic conflict, and increasing state of legal dualism. The country’s legal institutions have turned into battlegrounds with the opposing camps disputing or simply ignoring unfavourable rulings. At the heart of this is a struggle between the government and President Andrzej Duda – who is closely allied with the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s ruling party from 2015-2023 and now the main opposition grouping – with whom the Tusk administration will have to ‘co-habit’ until his presidential term of office ends in summer 2025.

This battle of wills between the two political camps and legal orders was exemplified by the bitter stand-off over the January arrest and imprisonment of former Law and Justice interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik. The two politicians received initial convictions in 2015 for exceeding their powers during a 2007 investigation into the so-called ‘land scandal’ (afera gruntowa) when they headed up Poland’s central anti-corruption bureau (CBA). Later that year, while they were still appealing, Mr Duda issued them with presidential pardons, arguing that the two had been victimised by a biased judicial establishment – whose interests, critics argued, were often closely entwined with those of the Poland’s political and business elites – for their effectiveness in ruthlessly uncovering and fighting corruption at the highest levels.

The pardons triggered a dispute among legal experts, and although they were upheld by the constitutional tribunal, Poland’s most senior judicial body, this ruling was ignored by much of the country’s legal establishment who argue that the tribunal is no longer a legitimate body. The issue here dates back to the beginning of the Law and Justice governments in 2015 when Mr Duda refused to swear-in three tribunal members nominated by the outgoing Civic Platform-dominated parliament. Law and Justice argues that these three nominees were appointed unlawfully because, at the time of their election, the outgoing parliament could not have known when the new legislature’s term of office would begin, and so selected them ‘just in case’. Law and Justice’s critics say that the three members who were subsequently nominated by the newly-elected parliament and appointed by Mr Duda occupied tribunal positions that had already been filled. They invoke a 2021 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that the presence of these so-called ‘understudy’ judges (dublerzy) rendered the tribunal unlawful (two of them died while in office but their replacements were also deemed illegitimate).

Conflicting supreme court rulings

In June 2023, Poland’s supreme court ruled the presidential pardons invalid on the grounds that they were issued before the full judicial process had been completed. This opened the way for a re-trial, and last December Mr Kamiński and Mr Wąsik were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. As a consequence, Szymon Hołowina – speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower parliamentary chamber, and leader of the liberal-centrist ‘Poland 2050’ (Polska 2050) grouping, one of Civic Platform’s junior governing partners – ruled that the two politicians’ parliamentary mandates had expired.

Mr Kamiński and Mr Wąsik appealed this decision with the supreme court and initially the court’s extraordinary audit and public affairs chamber overturned the Sejm speaker’s ruling. But Mr Hołownia did not accept this ruling citing European Court of Human Rights and EU Court of Justice judgements that this chamber is not a lawfully established body as it is staffed entirely by so-called ‘neo-judges’, those appointed by the national judicial council (KRS) after Law and Justice’s 2017 reforms which stipulated that most of the council was to be elected by parliament rather than the legal profession. For its part, Law and Justice argues that these European bodies have no competence to rule on Polish courts’ legal standing, and points out that Mr Hołownia did not question the chamber’s legitimacy when it ruled on the validity of last October’s parliamentary election. Nonetheless, Mr Hołownia re-directed the two parliamentarians’ appeals (illegally, his critics argue) to the court’s labour and social security chamber, which is still controlled by ‘old’ judges who pre-date the 2017 reforms (many of whom, Law and Justice argues are themselves highly politicised and prepared to use any occasion to undermine the party), that upheld his ruling.

In the event, Mr Kamiński and Mr Wąsik were dramatically detained by the police in the presidential palace where they had sought refuge. Although Mr Duda insisted that his original pardons were still legally effective, at the request of their wives he initiated a second clemency procedure which led to the politicians’ release two weeks later. However, their parliamentary status remains contested. Mr Hołownia insists his order is still in force as the two have criminal convictions. Law and Justice argues that they are still deputies due to the validity of Mr Duda’s original pardon and that parliament is not properly constituted until they are allowed to take their seats. Indeed, using this argument Mr Duda has said he will now refer every new government law for review by the constitutional tribunal, starting with this year’s state budget.

Controversy over state appointments

Controversy over Mr Kamiński and Mr Wąsik’s status is one of a number of bitter legal-political disputes that have dominated the Tusk government’s first two months in office and served to highlight this legal dualism. At the root of these controversies is the fact that one of the new administration’s top priorities is to replace Law and Justice appointees running key state institutions. Elite replacement is quite normal in Polish politics when there is a change of government but the problem here is that in some cases legislation is required to replace the current appointees, and the Tusk administration lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to over-turn Mr Duda’s legislative veto. So to move swiftly and decisively it has tried to find get-arounds and loopholes which some critics (and not just those aligned with Law and Justice) argue have been legally and constitutionally dubious, if not outright illegal.

For example, one of new government’s first moves was to replace the management of the state-owned media companies. These appointments are made by a body called the national media council, and legislation is required to change its composition or shorten its term of office, which runs until 2028. So the government has tried to use the fact that it is the sole shareholder in the companies to by-pass the council, initially simply replacing the existing management, and then, fearing (rightly as it turned out) that the courts might not uphold this, adopting the apparently less legally dubious approach of putting the companies into insolvency and appointing liquidators to take over their running.

All of this was in contravention of a so-called ‘safeguard order’ issued by the constitutional tribunal last December obliging the government to refrain from making any changes to state-owned media management, and later January ruling rejecting the government’s moves as unconstitutional. The government refused to recognise both rulings on the grounds that they involved ‘understudy’ judges, and in the case of the latter also arguing that two other tribunal members had conflicts of interest as former Law and Justice parliamentarians involved in amending the media law, and that the tribunal’s president was incorrectly appointed.

In January, in another controversial elite replacement move, justice minister and prosecutor general Adam Bodnar dismissed his deputy, national prosecutor Adam Barski, who was appointed by the previous government, and replaced him with an acting figure more closely aligned with the current administration. Although the previous parliament passed a law making the national prosecutor’s appointment and removal contingent upon the President’s agreement, Mr Bodnar presented legal opinions that Mr Barski’s original appointment had been defective, thereby providing him with an apparent legal get-around.

Mr Duda strongly disagreed that such a move was lawful, as did other senior prosecutors appointed by the previous government, and the constitutional tribunal issued an injunction ordering Mr Bodnar to refrain from suspending Mr Barski pending a full ruling on the issue. Mr Bodnar, in turn, argued that this tribunal order was also defective on the grounds that the case should have been first considered by the labour law court and, again, that one of the tribunal members had a conflict of interest as a former Law and Justice parliamentarian and election candidate alongside Mr Barski.

Still enjoying a post-election ‘honeymoon’?

This legal dualism reflects, inter-acts with and re-inforces the fact that Poland has a bitterly divided and polarised political scene. Both sides view the conflict as critically important for, and will fight vigorously to promote their different visions of, Poland’s future democracy. So far, this escalating polarisation and systemic conflict does not appear to have harmed the government’s political prospects. The new administration is still enjoying a post-election ‘honeymoon’ and Poles are not especially interested in what they see as legal nuances or abstract constitutional questions. Ultimately, the Tusk government is more likely to be judged on how it delivers on bread-and-butter socio-economic issues (although this could change if the rulings of the thousands of ‘neo-judges’ in ordinary civil, criminal or administrative cases are questioned).

Indeed, its most radical supporters actually want decisive action to, as they see it, ‘repair democracy’ and ‘restore the rule-of-law’ and are pleased that some kind of effective reckoning with Law and Justice’s legacy is taking place. Some use a ‘transitional justice’ logic to justify its actions: that constitutional safeguards can (indeed, should) sometimes be ignored when taking steps to restore legal order to institutions that have been corrupted and whose legitimacy is questionable. However, critics argue that, even if one accepts this analysis of the nature of Law and Justice’s systemic reforms and elite appointment policies (which it strongly contests, of course), this kind of ‘state of emergency’ framing uses the same justificatory logic that the previous ruling party used: that its reforms were necessary to repair the flawed institutions and elites that emerged following Poland’s distorted post-1989 transition to democracy.

The government’s combative approach has put those junior coalition partners, such as Mr Hołownia’s party, which appeared to offer a break with the polarising logic of Polish politics, in an awkward position – although it may also actually end up binding them more closely to the governing camp. At the same time, while polarisation helps Law and Justice to consolidate its electoral base, concentrating on these kind of ‘rule-of-law’ and systemic issues is not winning the party any new supporters, and arguably preventing it from focusing on more salient socio-economic questions and developing new ideas to broaden its appeal.

Are legal dualism and political polarisation sustainable?

Such political polarisation is containable within a framework of commonly accepted rules, institutions, procedures and practices. But legal dualism means that both sides now have their own set of laws, experts, judges and tribunals, and feel that some judicial authorities are acting on the basis of political sympathy rather than an objective legal framework. For now, the government has resolved this legal dualism by using the state apparatus to decisively enforce its will. Its supporters argue that if opponents feel that these actions are legally questionable then they can appeal through the courts, although government critics respond that these are lengthy processes during which time the new state appointees remain in post, and that the Tusk administration simply ignores unfavourable rulings anyway. Either way, the stage appears set for a protracted stand-off that could last at least until the end of Mr Duda’s mandate.

What is at stake in the dispute over Polish state-owned media?

The dispute over Poland’s state-owned media has shown how problematic the new government’s project of elite replacement can be where legislation is required to shorten its predecessor’s appointees’ terms of office. Get-arounds that avoid possible presidential vetoes leave it open to accusations that it is undermining democracy and violating the ‘rule of law’.

Sacking state media managers

In the week leading up to Christmas, Poland’s culture minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz sacked the management of the TVP state television company, Polish Radio and the state-owned Polish Press Agency (PAP), together with their supervisory boards, and replaced them with his own nominees. He also switched off the broadcast feed for the ‘TVP Info’ 24-hour news channel. Mr Sienkiewicz is a member of the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), the largest grouping in the new coalition government which took office in mid-December and is headed up by the party’s leader Donald Tusk, who was previously Polish prime minister between 2007-14.

Polish President Andrzej Duda – who is an ally of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost power after eight years in office following its defeat in last October’s parliamentary election – condemned the new government’s move as unconstitutional and a flagrant violation of the principles of the ‘rule of law’. Immediately after Christmas, he refused to sign into law a budget-related spending bill which included 3 billion złoties of funding for the state-owned media; the government lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to overturn a presidential veto. When the new government originally announced its spending plans they did not include funding for the state-owned media – which, at that time, were still effectively under the influence of Law and Justice-backed nominees – but, following the culture minister’s dramatic moves, the funds were re-instated. Mr Sienkiewicz responded by putting the three state-owned media companies into insolvency and appointing liquidators to take over their day-to-day running.

Politicisation or pluralism?

‘De-politicising’ Polish state-owned media outlets was one of the new ruling parties’ main election pledges. They argued that during Law and Justice’s period in office the taxpayer-funded media outlets, especially TVP’s news and current affairs programmes, had violated their statutory duty to provide services that were pluralistic and impartial, turning the state-owned broadcasters into crude ruling party propaganda channels. They said that this point had been made repeatedly by international bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election monitoring missions, while the CBOS polling agency found that public trust in state TV’s news output had fallen to its lowest ever levels.

However, Law and Justice supporters argued that the state-owned media helped to bring greater pluralism and balance to a media landscape otherwise dominated by the liberal-left. They said that Polish governments had always sought to influence state-owned media and there was also political bias under previous managements. Law and Justice argued that, for example, before its 2015 changes to the state-owned media all three main Polish evening news bulletins had (to a greater or lesser extent) an anti-conservative bias. Some Law and Justice supporters acknowledged that after 2015 the pro-government bias became more blatant (and, therefore, arguably actually less effective). However, others argued that state-owned media needed to offer Poles a powerful counter-narrative to provide balance when privately-owned outlets were so overwhelmingly anti-Law and Justice.

Getting around the presidential veto

Nonetheless, even some of the new government’s supporters were frustrated that it did not appear to have any broader plan beyond closing down TVP Info and firing state-owned media’s management and leading journalists. There was also a fierce dispute about the legality and constitutionality of Mr Sienkiewicz’s actions. Indeed, the government’s critics did not just include Law and Justice but also a number of legal experts and bodies such as the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights that had been highly critical of the previous administration’s approach to the ‘rule of law’.

For its part, Law and Justice argued that the statutory body responsible for appointing and dismissing the management of state-owned media was the national media council (RMN), whose term of office runs until 2028. If the new government wanted to change the legal rules for appointing state media authorities then it needed to amend the media law (as Law and Justice did when it sacked the then-state broadcasting management boards in 2015). Law and Justice also accused the new government of acting in contravention of a so-called ‘safeguard order’ issued by the Polish constitutional tribunal in December obliging it to refrain from making any changes to state-owned media management.

However, because of the risk of a presidential veto (Mr Duda remains in office until summer 2025), the new government did not follow the legislative route. Instead, it pushed through a parliamentary resolution calling for decisive corrective action to restore the proper functioning of state-owned media. This cited a December 2016 constitutional tribunal ruling that found fault with aspects of the Law and Justice government’s 2015 takeover of state-owned media, specifically that only the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiTV), and not a government minister, could appoint their management boards.

The government argued that, as the 2016 ruling was never implemented, the provisions of the law establishing the national media council had no binding force and this empowered Mr Sienkiewicz  (as the legal representative of the state treasury, the companies’ sole shareholder) to use the powers of commercial law to remove the existing management and supervisory boards and appoint new ones. In other words, it said that Mr Sienkiewicz was correct to proceed in this way because Law and Justice’s earlier actions were themselves illegal, or at least un-constitutional. The government also argued that the constitutional tribunal’s December ‘protective order’ had no legal validity because one of the members who issued the ruling had been appointed inappropriately.

Mr Sienkiewicz changes tactics

The government’s critics responded that, even if the provisions of the act that empowered the national media council to appoint and dismiss public media managers appeared to conflict implicitly with the 2016 ruling, the constitutional tribunal did not declare explicitly that the council was unconstitutional because it was not considering directly the legislation empowering it. As noted above, it was examining earlier legislation passed when Law and Justice originally took control of the state-owned media at the end of 2015. This meant that the provisions of the law empowering the national media council were still operative.

The government’s supporters invoked the concept of ‘secondary un-constitutionality’ arguing that the tribunal ruling implied that the law transferring appointment powers to the national media council had no biding force because it violated the same constitutional standards as the one that it ruled unconstitutional in 2016. The government’s critics, in turn, responded that, even one accepted that the correct legal interpretation of the tribunal ruling was that the national media council could not appoint these management boards, then these powers should pass to the National Broadcasting Council (which currently has a majority of Law and Justice nominees) as the constitutionally designated body, and not a government minister. Moreover, they pointed out that when the current governing parties were in opposition to Law and Justice, they themselves argued that ministers directly appointing state-owned media management bodies was illegal and unconstitutional.

Indeed, some commentators argued that Mr Sienkiewicz decided to put the state media companies into insolvency because he was not confident that the national court register (KRS), the body responsible for validating changes to the company boards, would confirm his new appointments. By appointing liquidators instead he was felt to have a much stronger legal case. However, even those commentators who felt that the culture minister was legally empowered to appoint liquidators by-passing both the national media council and National Broadcasting Council, pointed out that they only have very limited powers relating strictly to preparing the businesses for liquidation. All of this further complicated an already complex and contested legal situation.

The ends justify the means?

Some government supporters use a ‘transitional justice’ logic to justify its actions: that constitutional safeguards can (indeed, should) sometimes be ignored when taking steps to restore legal order to institutions that have been corrupted and whose legitimacy is questionable. In other words, that restoring democracy and the ‘rule of law’ sometimes requires un-democratic and un-lawful (or questionably democratic and lawful) means. However, even if one accepts this analysis of the nature of Law and Justice’s media reforms (which, as noted above, is strongly contested by party’s supporters) this kind of ‘democratic coup’ framing arguably uses the same (its critics argue, legally and constitutionally questionable) logic that the previous ruling party’s supporters applied to justify its own systemic reforms and elite replacement policies. These, they argued were necessary to repair the flawed institutions and elites that emerged following Poland’s distorted post-1989 transition to democracy.

Some commentators also argue that even if the takeover of the state media companies was dubious (or even unlawful), it should ultimately be judged on whether it manages to establish more pluralistic and objective media outlets. However, the government’s critics argue that, not only is this once again simply replicating the ‘ends-justify-the-means’ logic that the current governing parties previously accused Law and Justice of, but that the ruling camp has not actually presented any plan or vision of how the state media will be ‘de-politicised’. The early indications were, they argued, that ‘de-politicisation’ simply meant changing its management to one that is more sympathetic to the new government, with the previous crude bias being replaced by a softer, more subtle one.

Further polarisation of the political scene

The dispute over state-owned media further polarises an already bitterly divided Polish political scene. The government appears to have calculated that it was worth taking certain risks to give its most radical core supporters, who intensely disliked state media’s political output and wanted decisive action, a sense of moral victory and satisfaction that some kind of reckoning with Law and Justice’s legacy was finally taking place. For Law and Justice, although the protests in and around the state media offices mainly involved parliamentary deputies and leading figures from the companies’ old guard, the notion that they are, as they put it, defending a free and plural media against an illegal and un-constitutional takeover provides the party and its supporters with a new rallying message.

On the other hand, the manner of the state media takeover puts Civic Platform’s junior coalition partner – the eclectic liberal- and agrarian-centrist ‘Third Road’ (Trzecia Droga), which appeared to offer, to some extent at least, a break with the polarising logic of Polish politics – in a more awkward position. There is also, of course, a risk that the spectacle of occupied buildings and switching off television signals could disconcert some moderate government supporters who might be concerned that that once the rules have been bent (some would say broken) it becomes tempting to continue to do so, perhaps even more blatantly. On the other hand, forcing the ‘Third Way’ to defend – and, therefore, be implicated in – such controversial actions may, ironically, actually end up binding them more closely to the governing coalition.

Elite replacement is problematic

The new government’s moves to change state-owned media management have set off a legal and political firestorm that is unlikely to settle down in the coming weeks, not least because it is part of its broader project of elite replacement. The un-picking of Law and Justice’s judicial appointments and reforms is the likely be the next battleground in this conflict. The dispute over the state-owned media has shown how problematic this could be if legislation is required to shorten the previous government’s appointees’ terms of office. It will be even more difficult when, like judges, these appointees have constitutionally protected terms of office. Further get-arounds to avoid possible presidential vetoes will once-again leave the new administration open to accusations that it is guilty of the same undermining of democracy and ‘rule of law’ of which it accused its predecessor.

How is Poland’s new ruling coalition governing?

Poland’s ideologically diverse new government is prioritising ‘settling accounts’ with its right-wing predecessor and elite replacement. But Poles may quickly tire of this if they view it as ‘revenge politics’, and looking for get-arounds to avoid possible presidential vetoes and constitutional tribunal referrals leaves the new administration open to accusations that they are themselves violating the ‘rule of law’.

An ideologically diverse coalition

At the beginning of December, a new Polish coalition government comprising the previous opposition parties was sworn into office. The new administration is led by Donald Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister between 2007-14 and then European Council President from 2014-19. Mr Tusk returned to Polish politics in 2021 to resume leadership of the then-main opposition grouping, the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), which, after an eight-year interlude, once-again became the country’s main governing party.

The new coalition is very ideologically and programmatically heterogeneous ranging from economic and social liberals, agrarians, centrists, social democrats through to moderate social conservatives. It contains three main groupings: Civic Platform, the eclectic ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga) coalition, and the ‘Left’ (Lewica), each of which themselves comprises, or was elected at the head of, alliances of several parties. Opposition to the outgoing government, led since autumn 2015 by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, and a desire to undo its legacy were, and remain, the main things that unite these groupings.

The new government is divided on both socio-economic and moral-cultural issues but it is the latter that are likely to form the biggest threat to its programmatic cohesion. This is partly because the ‘Left’ performed less well than expected in the October parliamentary election and its most radical component, the seven deputies who represent the ‘Together’ (Razem) party, has decided not to join the government having failed to secure financial guarantees for the implementation of its social policy programmes on housing and health care. The more centrist ‘New Left’ (Nowa Lewica) party, whose members have taken up ministerial positions, is more biddable and concerned primarily with moral-cultural questions.

The pressure on the new government on socio-economic issues will come from the fact that, to win the election, it had to make (some argue over-promise) a series of extremely costly spending pledges. On the one hand, it has to be seen to be delivering on these, not least with important local elections coming up in April and European Parliament (EP) elections in June 2024. Hence Mr Tusk’s inaugural parliamentary policy speech and the new government’s first budget confirmed some of Civic Platform’s key election campaign promises, such as: a 30% pay increases for teachers and 20% for other public sector employees, and introducing a new 1,500 złoties-per-month childcare benefit for mothers who return to work after maternity leave (the so-called ‘grandmother’s allowance’). On the other hand, the government is not implementing its costliest pledge to radically increase the annual tax-fee income threshold to 60,000 złoties which Civic Platform had also promised to implement within its first 100 days in office but now argues that it is too late in the tax year to introduce such a change.

Moral-cultural issues are problematic

But it is moral-cultural issues that are likely to be the most problematic and divisive for the new government, particularly the question of abortion. Many commentators felt that the huge protests against the Polish constitutional tribunal’s October 2020 ruling, that abortions on the grounds of serious and irreversible birth defects are unconstitutional, was a key turning point in the Law and Justice government’s slump in support from which it never really recovered and which culminated in its recent election defeat. As a consequence, this issue has assumed huge symbolic importance for many of the new government’s supporters.

However, although there is broad consensus within the coalition that the tribunal’s ruling should be reversed, it is very divided on what precise form that should take. Civic Platform and the ‘Left’ are committed to liberalising the law to allow abortion, more or less on demand, up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. But the ‘Third Way’ wants a return to the much more restrictive so-called abortion ‘compromise’ that existed before the tribunal ruling, together with a national referendum on the issue.

The ‘Third Way’ is an electoral alliance comprising two groupings: the agrarian-centrist Polish Peasant Party (PSL), whose moderate social conservatism reflects its predominantly rural and small-town electoral base; and the liberal-centrist ‘Poland 2050’ (‘Polska 2050) grouping formed to capitalise on TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia’s success in the 2020 presidential election, when he finished third with 14% of the votes. Indeed, Mr Hołownia’s continued presidential ambitions provide another potential source of instability within the coalition. He is already using the very high profile post of speaker of the Sejm (the more powerful lower parliamentary chamber), the second most senior Polish state office after the President, to promote himself ahead of the summer 2025 presidential poll. However, Civic Platform Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who narrowly lost the 2020 election, will no doubt also be looking to make another presidential run, as may Mr Tusk himself if he does not secure a senior EU post after the current European Commission’s term of office ends in 2024.

Settling accounts with Law and Justice

So given that what unites these parties is their opposition to Law and Justice one of the new government’s top priorities is a so-called ‘reckoning’ (in Polish: rozliczenie) with the previous administration’s alleged abuses of power. A key instrument to achieve this will be high-profile special parliamentary investigative commissions. One such commission has already been established to investigate the legality and correctness of the so-called ‘envelope election’ (wybory kopertowe). This was an unsuccessful attempt by Law and Justice to hold the spring 2020 presidential poll by postal ballot rather than through in-person voting at polling stages during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, which cost the Polish taxpayer 70 million złoties. The new government argues that this involved violation of the law, while Law and Justice insists that it had a constitutional obligation to organise the scheduled election safely and that all of its actions were legal. Two further commissions of inquiry are planned to investigate allegations that the Law and Justice government misused the Pegasus software system to spy on its opponents illegally, and that foreign ministry officials sold Polish work visas in exchange for bribes.

The problem here for the new government is that recent experience suggests that Poles become very quickly bored of these kinds of attempts at settling accounts with previous administrations. None of the committees of inquiry set up by both the previous Law and Justice government and its Civic Platform-led predecessor had anything like the political impact of the famous commission investigating the so-called ‘Rywin’ corruption scandal twenty years ago which helped to precipitate the re-alignment of the Polish party system. Indeed, although the new administration’s supporters insist that they are simply trying to hold Law and Justice to account for their time in office, Poles want their governments to be forward-looking and grow tired very quickly of what they often perceive as acts of ‘revenge politics’. So, unless these commissions can reveal something really striking and eye-catching to discredit the previous government, they too are unlikely to develop much political traction.

Elite replacement is a priority

The new government is also prioritising public appointments and elite replacement. This is partly because it is much easier to secure agreement within a programmatically diverse coalition on personnel than on policy matters. Sharing out the spoils of office is often the ‘glue’ that holds together Polish governments and political formations. But it also ties in with another one of government’s other leitmotifs of, as they put it, ‘repairing the state’ and ‘restoring the rule of law’.

The Law and Justice government argued that the institutions and elites that emerged during Poland’s post-1989 transition to democracy were deeply flawed. It implemented a programme of radical state reform, particularly of the judiciary which it saw as closely entwined with, and committed to defending, the interests of the post-communist elite. The new coalition, on the other hand, argues that many of Law and Justice’s actions in office, particularly its judicial reforms, undermined democracy and the ‘rule of law’. In fact, many of Law and Justice’s institutional reforms simply involved replacing one set of elite appointees with another, making it appear relatively easy for the new government to unravel them by making a new set of appointments.

This is fairly straightforward in areas such as public administration, state-owned companies, government supervisory bodies and the security services, where the new government is already replacing Law and Justice appointees with figures more sympathetic to the pre-2015 establishment. But elite replacement is more problematic where the appointees have constitutionally protected terms of office, such as the nearly 3,000 new judges nominated by Poland’s national judicial council (KRS) since it was overhauled by Law and Justice in 2018. Previously most of the judicial council’s members were appointed by the legal profession themselves but following Law and Justice’s reforms the majority have been selected mainly by elected bodies such as parliament. The new government questions the constitutional status of the revamped judicial council’s nominees, referring to them disparagingly as so-called ‘neo-judges’, but the Polish Constitution protects them from dismissal.

The other problematic areas of elite replacement are those appointees or bodies where legislation is required to shorten their terms of office or change their composition, such as the national judicial council itself, because of the risk of a presidential veto or constitutional tribunal referral. Until the 2025 election, the new government has to ‘cohabit’ with a Law and Justice-aligned President, Andrzej Duda, and lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to over-turn his legislative veto. Mr Duda can also refer legislation to the constitutional tribunal (as can a group of 50 parliamentary deputies) which can strike down laws that it deems to be un-constitutional. The problem for the incoming government is that all 15 members of the tribunal were elected by the Polish parliament since Law and Justice came to office The legal status of three of these members is contested by the parties comprising the new government and much of the Polish legal establishment, but the process of appointing the other twelve has not been questioned which means that Law and Justice-nominated appointees will have a majority in the tribunal for some time.

Get-arounds and role reversal

So the new government is trying to get around these constraints by, for example, passing parliamentary resolutions that question some of Law and Justice’s appointments (invoking rulings by the EU courts and international bodies, or the constitutional tribunal when it comprised a majority of pre-2015 appointees) or ministerial directives that are not subject to presidential veto or constitutional tribunal referral. An example of this was the government’s recent move to replace the management of Polish state TV and radio which, they said, had turned the public broadcasters into Law and Justice propaganda tools (Law and Justice argues that they helped to ensure political pluralism in a media landscape otherwise dominated by their liberal-left opponents).

These management boards were appointed by the National Media Council (RMN), and legislation is required to shorten the latter’s term of office (which runs until 2028) or change its composition. However, culture minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz sacked the TV and radio management following a parliamentary resolution that cited a 2016 constitutional tribunal (dominated by pre-2015 appointees) ruling that the National Media Council was unconstitutional; although critics argue that this was a misinterpretation of the tribunal’s ruling. As a consequence, we are already seeing a lot of role reversal, and are going to see even more over the next few weeks and months, with Law and Justice citing the Constitution and accusing the new government of violating the ‘rule of law’ in exactly the same way that the now-governing parties did about its predecessor during the previous eight years when they were in opposition.

What are the challenges facing the new Polish government?

My 20-minute video blog on the challenges facing Poland’s new government:

https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=7fbb9122-0e45-418e-9b88-b0d800ba43aa

What are the Polish left’s post-election prospects?

Although the left looks set to return to government after 18 years, its vote share actually went down in last month’s election and it risks being subsumed within a coalition dominated by more economically liberal and socially conservative groupings. The Polish left’s strategic dilemma remains that less well-off, economically leftist voters incline towards parties that are right-wing on moral-cultural issues but also support high levels of social welfare, while ‘left-wing’ socially liberal voters are often also quite economically liberal.

A bittersweet election result

In recent years, the Polish left has enjoyed considerable influence on public debate. Many of its policy stances on both socio-economic and moral-cultural issues now enjoy widespread support and have been adopted by more liberal and centrist political groupings. However, this has not been matched by electoral success.

For much of the post-1989 period the most powerful political force on the left was the communist successor Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which governed Poland from 1993-97 and 2001-5. However, the Alliance’s support collapsed at the 2005 parliamentary election following a series of spectacular high level corruption scandals. It contested the 2015 election as part of the ‘United Left’ (ZL) coalition but narrowly failed to cross the 8% parliamentary representation threshold for electoral alliances (5% for individual parties). As a result, left-wing parties did not secure parliamentary representation for the first time since 1989.

The Alliance faced a challenge on its radical left flank from the ‘Together’ (Razem) party, which gained kudos among many younger, left-leaning Poles for its dynamism and programmatic clarity. It accused the Alliance of betraying left-wing ideas by pursuing orthodox liberal economic policies when in office. In the event, ‘Together’ won 3.6% of the vote in 2015 which was not enough to obtain parliamentary representation but meant that it peeled away sufficient left-wing votes to prevent the ‘United Left’ from crossing the 8% threshold. However, ‘Together’ failed to capitalise on its early promise and attract a broader range of support beyond the well-educated urban ‘hipsters’ that formed its core electorate.

In 2019 another left-wing challenger party emerged in the form of the social liberal ‘Spring’ (Wiosna) grouping formed by veteran sexual minorities campaigner Robert Biedroń, at the time the Polish left’s most popular and charismatic politician. However, after a promising start ‘Spring’ struggled to carve out a niche for itself and only just crossed the 5% representation threshold in that year’s European Parliament (EP) election, well below expectations.

Consequently, these three parties contested the 2019 legislative election as a united ‘Left’ (Lewica) slate and finished third with 12.6% of the votes, regaining parliamentary representation for the left after a four-year hiatus. Many left-wing activists and commentators hoped that the new ‘Left’ parliamentary caucus would use this platform to shift the terms of the debate decisively to the left and challenge the right-wing and liberal-centrist duopoly that has dominated Polish politics since 2005. The Democratic Left Alliance changed its name to the ‘New Left’ (Nowa Lewica) and merged with ‘Spring’, although ‘Together’ chose to maintain its organisational independence and distinctive ideological identity.

In fact, last month’s parliamentary election results were bittersweet for the ‘Left’. On the one hand, opposition parties won enough seats to secure a parliamentary majority and it looks set to become the first left-wing grouping to join a Polish government for 18 years. On the other hand, the ‘Left’ lost half-a-million electors as its vote share fell to 8.6% which translated into only 26 seats in the 460-member Sejm, Poland’s more powerful lower parliamentary chamber. This was 23 fewer than in 2019 making it only the fourth largest parliamentary grouping, and means that the ‘Left’ will return to office as the smallest member of a governing coalition dominated by liberal- and agrarian-centrist parties.

Lacking a distinctive appeal

So why did the ‘Left’ perform so badly? Firstly, its election campaign often came across as dull and unimaginative, with even politically sympathetic commentators acknowledging that it lacked emotional impact and a strong and clear over-arching narrative about what the grouping stood for and how it would govern differently from other parties. Indeed, during much of the campaign, the ‘Left’ behaved as if its over-riding priority was simply to work with other opposition parties and remove the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s governing party since 2015, from office. This encouraged many of its potential supporters to switch to the larger liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s ruling party between 2007-15 and subsequently the main opposition grouping. Put simply, the ‘Left’ did not do enough to stress its distinctiveness as an independent political actor, particularly given that over the last few years Civic Platform has pivoted strongly to the left on both socio-economic and moral-cultural issues.

The fact that the ‘Left’ focused much of its fire on the smaller radical right free-market Confederation (Konfederacja) grouping also helped create the sense that it was competing for voters on the periphery rather than at the core of the Polish party system. Indeed, the ‘Left’ appearing to acknowledge that it would only be a junior partner in a future anti-Law and Justice government also had a de-mobilising effect on its potential supporters, which even the most effective political marketing would have had difficulty in overcoming. An exit poll conducted for the Ipsos agency found that only 57.6% of 2019 ‘Left’ voters stuck with grouping in 2023, while 23.8% switched to Civic Platform (which secured 30.7% support overall and 157 seats) and a further 12.9% to the ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga), an agrarian- and liberal-centrist electoral coalition (which also finished ahead of the ‘Left’ with 14.4% and 65 seats).

Not winning enough younger women, losing older voters

The ‘Left’ had hoped to tap into the political mobilisation generated by the huge demonstrations that erupted in October 2020 when Poland’s constitutional tribunal ruled that abortions in cases of foetal defects were unconstitutional. Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, and the tribunal’s ruling meant that the procedure was legal only in cases where pregnancy put the life or health of the mother in danger or if it resulted from incest or rape. The abortion protests were among the largest in Poland since 1989. Many young Poles were no doubt attracted by their carnival atmosphere at a time when the scope for social inter-action was severely limited by coronavirus pandemic restrictions, but some commentators also argued that they were a formative political experience for those who participated in them, particularly younger women.

However, although several of the ‘Left’’s leading figures were at the forefront of these protests, they did not appear to provide the grouping with an electoral boost. While the ‘Left’ secured an above-average vote share of 10.1% among women (compared to 6.9% among men) this was considerably less than it was hoping for given how much of its campaign messaging was focused on trying to attract female voters.

The ‘Left’ did attempt, to some extent at least, to showcase some its most effective female leaders who promoted the grouping’s policy promises on issues such as liberalising the abortion law. The ‘Left’ was, for example, the only political grouping to be represented by a women, Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, during the sole televised party leaders’ debate. However, for a political formation that professed to be in favour greater women’s representation (by mandatory quotas if necessary) it foregrounded male politicians during many of the most high-profile campaign moments. For example, it was ‘New Left’ joint leaders Mr Biedroń and veteran ex-communist Włodzimierz Czarzasty who spoke on the main platform during the opposition’s huge ‘March of a Million Hearts’ (Marsz Miliona Serc) in Warsaw two weeks prior to the election.

For sure, the ‘Left’ secured the support of 17.7% of under-30s, among whom there was also a huge increase in turnout, the second highest vote share after Civic Platform on 28.3%. But this was the same proportion as the grouping won in 2019 and, again, it was hoping for considerably more, particularly given that in 2020 the CBOS polling agency found that the number of Poles aged 18-24 who identified with the political left had nearly doubled from 17% in 2019 to 30% in 2020 (the highest number recorded since the collapse of communism), rising to 40% among young women.

However, particularly disappointing for the ‘Left’ was the massive defeat that it suffered among older voters: it only secured 5.1% of 50–59-year-olds and 5.2% among over-60s. For years, this demographic had comprised one of the Polish left’s most important electoral constituencies, especially the (admittedly declining) section of the electorate that had some kind of positive sentiments towards, or direct material interests linking them to, the previous communist regime, such as those families who were connected to the military and former security services.

Responsibility without influence?

Moreover, although the 26 ‘Left’ deputies are theoretically indispensable to a future government formed by the current opposition parties, the grouping risks being subsumed within an administration dominated by larger centrist parties whose instincts are more economically liberal or socially conservative – and, therefore, unable to implement its flagship policies. For example, the expected new government’s preliminary coalition agreement lacked a specific pledge to liberalise the abortion law in line with the ‘Left’’s programme because the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), the moderately socially conservative grouping that makes up one-half of the ’Third Way’, made it clear that they oppose this. The ‘Left’ really needs to carve out a niche for itself by securing control of ministerial portfolios where it can make an impact either by advancing its political agenda on moral-cultural issues or where its socio-economic policy pledges are not reined in by overall government budget constraints.

In fact, the ‘Left’ is divided on how to operate most effectively in the new parliament. While politicians from the more centrist ‘New Left’ will take up government ministerial positions, the seven deputies who represent ‘Together’ have decided not to formally join the coalition having failed to secure firm pledges on abortion and financial guarantees for the implementation of its social policy programmes in areas such as health care and housing. However, ‘Together’ has said that it will vote to install the new government in a forthcoming parliamentary confidence vote. The problem with this approach is that risks leaving ‘Left’ supporters feeling that their votes have been wasted while, at the same time, ‘Together’ is propping up – and, therefore, still being held responsible for (while having even less influence upon) – the new government.

The Polish left’s strategic dilemma

In fact, even if the ‘Left’ can finesse this and carve out a distinctive role for itself within the new administration, it still faces a long-term strategic dilemma. Many more Poles declare their attachment to left-wing views (around 20% according to 2020 CBOS data) than actually vote for the ‘Left’. However, in Poland declarations of left-right self-placement are generally determined by attitudes towards moral-cultural issues rather than include traditional left-wing socio-economic concerns. Indeed, less well-off, economically leftist voters tend to be more socially conservative, so often incline towards parties such as Law and Justice that are right-wing on moral-cultural issues but also support high levels of social welfare and greater state intervention in the economy.

For example, only 5.1% of workers voted for the ‘Left’ (its highest vote share, 21.9%, was actually among students) while 50.4% supported Law and Justice. Although the ‘Left’ did include social programmes in its election platform, for most Poles it was associated primarily with moral-cultural rather than socio-economic issues. At the same time, the kind of younger, better-off, socially liberal voters who in Western Europe would incline naturally towards left-wing parties, in Poland are often also quite economically liberal. So, there is always a risk that these voters will support larger liberal-centrist groupings such as Civic Platform, particularly if they (as many of them did in this election) prioritise keeping Law and Justice out of office above all else.

Why did the opposition win the Polish election?

Poland’s opposition parties look set to form the next government because an eclectic liberal-centrist agrarian electoral coalition won over voters who wanted change but not a return to the pre-2015 status quo ante. The opposition benefited from an increase in support and turnout in larger towns and among younger voters, but less photogenic middle-aged electors were just as, if not more, significant.

Record turnout, surprising result

The October 15th parliamentary election saw a record 74.4% turnout, the highest in post-communist Poland. This reflected an extremely closely fought and polarised campaign, and what many commentators described as the most important Polish election since the collapse of communism in 1989. The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s governing party since autumn 2015, won the largest share of the vote with 35.4%, but this only translated into 194 seats in the 460-member Sejm, the more powerful lower chamber of the Polish parliament, well short of the 231 required for an overall majority. The party does not appear to have enough potential allies to remain in office for an unprecedented third term.

Rather, it was the three main opposition groupings that were able to win a combined 248 seats, comfortably enough to form a coalition government. The liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 led by former prime minister and European Council President Donald Tusk, won 30.7% of the vote and 157 seats. The ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga) – an electoral coalition comprising the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), that traces its roots to the nineteenth century agrarian movement, and a liberal-centrist newcomer ‘Poland 2050’ (Polska 2050) founded by former TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia following his strong showing in the 2020 presidential election – took third place with 14.4% of the votes and 65 seats. Although its vote and seat share went down, an amalgam of left-wing groupings standing on the ‘New Left’ (Nowa Lewica) party ticket won 8.6% of the votes and 26 seats.

While the two main parties performed broadly as expected, most pre-election polls had not predicted that the opposition parties would be able to form a majority. One of the main reasons for this surprising outcome was that the ‘Third Way’ won a larger vote share than expected. Most polls were predicting that that it would only secure around 10%; indeed, at one point there was even speculation that it might not cross the 8% parliamentary representation threshold for electoral coalitions.

The opposition’s election to lose?

Why was the better-than-expected ‘Third Way’ performance so significant? Ultimately, there were two main drivers of voting intentions in this election. On the one hand, most Poles were dissatisfied with Law and Justice’s record in government and felt that it was time for a change. The ruling party had been on the backfoot for most of the last three years. Its initial slump in support was due in large part to a backlash against a hugely controversial October 2020 ruling by Poland’s constitutional tribunal that further tightened Poland’s already restrictive abortion law by invalidating termination of pregnancy in cases where the foetus was seriously malformed or suffered from an incurable disorder. Although Law and Justice said this was a sovereign decision by an independent body, the government’s opponents argued that the tribunal was under the ruling party’s control and the judgement set off a nationwide wave of street protests, particularly involving younger Poles.

It came at the same time as Law and Justice proposed an animal protection law that many Polish farmers, who constituted a key element of its rural-agricultural core electorate, felt threatened their livelihoods. The ruling also coincided with a sense that the government was not coping effectively with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, according to the Politico ‘poll of polls’ support for Law and Justice fell sharply from 43% in September 2020 to 34% in November and never really recovered.

Together with the economic fall-out from the pandemic crisis, the war in neighbouring Ukraine further complicated matters for the government as inflation increased to a 25-year high and eroded the value of the huge welfare payments that were key to Law and Justice’s electoral appeal. Counter-inflationary interest rate increases, in turn, exacerbated the sense of economic insecurity. While no single crisis reached a critical stage as a political game-changer, their cumulative effect was to erode support for Law and Justice, and for months no opinion poll had predicted that the party would win enough seats to retain its outright parliamentary majority. So the election was very much the opposition’s to lose.

A ‘gateway drug’ for uncertain opposition voters

At the same time, however, Law and Justice’s original election victory also reflected a strong prevailing mood that it was time for change and most Poles did not want a return to the pre-2015 status quo ante. That was why Law and Justice focused much of its campaign on polarising the election as a straight choice between the incumbent and Civic Platform, specifically Mr Tusk. Given that he was prime minister for seven out of the eight years that Civic Platform was in office, few politicians better embodied the previous government. Law and Justice believed that, however frustrated Poles may have been with the current administration, most of them did not want to hand back the reins of power to Mr Tusk.

An important element of Law and Justice’s campaign strategy here was to call multiple referendums on the same day as the parliamentary poll, including four questions on migration, the retirement age and other issues designed specifically to remind voters about various unpopular policies and stances associated with Civic Platform. In fact, most voters followed the opposition’s call to boycott the referendums which only secured a 40.9% turnout, well short of the 50% required for them to be legally binding. In the event, the desire for change proved to be the more powerful driver, and here the role of the ‘Third Way’ was crucial in acting as an effective channel, a sort of ‘gateway drug’, for picking up uncertain voters who were disillusioned with Law and Justice but reluctant to vote for Civic Platform and Mr Tusk.

A number of developments during the final two weeks of the election campaign, when a lot of undecided voters made up their minds, were significant here. Firstly, Civic Platform made a deliberate strategic pivot to de-polarise the campaign and tried to persuade voters to support all of the opposition parties and not simply rally around the largest grouping. At the same time, Mr Hołownia, who earlier in the year appeared to be spent force politically, performed well in the only televised party leaders debate organised by the TVP public broadcaster where he was able to re-recapture the ‘newness’ that characterised his 2020 presidential campaign. The grouping’s catchy slogan ‘Either the “Third Way” or a Law and Justice third term’ (Trzecia Droga albo trzecia kadencja PiS) also gained traction, while a decision by the grouping’s leaders not to participate in Civic Platform’s huge pre-election ‘March of a Million Hearts’ (Marsz Miliona Serc) demonstration proved an effective way of differentiating themselves from Mr Tusk’s party.

In effect, the ‘Third Way’ convinced enough voters that it represented something new and different while Law and Justice failed in its efforts to tie the grouping to Civic Platform and Mr Tusk in the public consciousness. Its success appeared to vindicate the arguments of those who were against the opposition parties running as a single electoral list on the grounds that it could lose voters on its ‘flanks’, or those who rejected the current party duopoly and might instead gravitate towards ‘challenger’ groupings (or simply abstain).

The ‘Confederation’ under-performs

The other big surprise was the under-performance of the radical right free-market ‘Confederation’ (Konfederacja) party, which only secured 7.2% of the vote. Had it obtained the 10% that most final opinion polls were predicting, ‘Confederation’ would almost certainly have held the balance in power in the new parliament. ‘Confederation’ surged to double-digit support in the late spring and the early summer but peaked too early and had no idea how to consolidate and build upon this momentum.

It was unable to cope with the intense media scrutiny that it then came under, and particularly to re-assure voters put off by some of the more extreme statements made by its candidates and leaders. The party’s growth was based largely on ‘Confederation’ professionalising its image by consciously sidelining its most controversial figures while foregrounding younger leaders who were able to communicate the radical ‘Confederation’ programme in a more measured and reasonable way, particularly the charismatic 36-year-old businessman Sławomir Mentzen. However, although Mr Mentzen was the most effective utiliser of the Internet among Polish politicians, he revealed a lack of experience and depth when thrust into the mainstream media spotlight.

The party’s early success also gave its opponents time to develop an attractive counter-offer. Indeed, its under-performance was, to some extent, linked to the better-than-expected result for the ‘Third Way’ which pitched its own free-market ideas and hoovered up some of those younger, aspirational voters who were attracted to ‘Confederation’ as a ‘third force’ challenging the Law and Justice-Civic Platform duopoly.

Middle-aged voters count too

According to the exit poll conducted by the Ipsos agency, there was very little evidence of significant voter transfers between the governing and opposition camps. Rather, the key to the opposition parties’ victory appeared to be their ability to secure the support of 64.1% of ‘new’ electors who did not vote in the previous 2019 poll, compared with only 15.5% who plumped for Law and Justice.

Much of the Western opinion-forming media interpreted this as a revolt of young, urban, female cosmopolitan-liberals against Law and Justice’s predominantly elderly, provincial, male and socially conservative electoral base. The actual picture is more complicated. While turnout among women increased from 61.5% to 73.7%, it did so by roughly the same proportion among men, 60.8% to 72.1%. Law and Justice remained the most popular party among women and the fall in its vote share in this demographic, from 43% to 36%, was in line with its average 8.2% drop in support.

Moreover, turnout increased by roughly the same proportion in rural areas (10.3%) and smaller towns (11.3%) as it did in medium-sized towns (12.9%) and cities (11.4%). The real surge was in larger towns (between 200-500,000 residents) where turnout increased by 18.6% to 82.6%. This was also where Law and Justice saw its largest drop in support, and the opposition’s overall vote share increased by 9.2% compared to its average increase of 5.1%.

For sure, there was a huge 23.5% increase in turnout among younger (18-30 year-old) voters from just 46.4% to 69.9%, compared with the overall average increase of 12.7%, while electoral participation among over-60s actually fell by 0.7% from 66.2% to 65.5%. Law and Justice also saw a 11.3% slump fall in support among younger voters from 26.2% to only 14.9% (and 13.6% fall among 30-39 year-olds from 36.9% to 26.3%) while its vote share among over-60s only fell by 2.6% from 55.6% to 53%. At the same time, the overall opposition vote share among younger voters increased by 10.9%, but only by 1.3% among the oldest.

However, the biggest increase in turnout, by 23.8% from 59.6% to 83.4%, was actually among 50-59 year olds And the most significant increase in support for the opposition parties, by 14.8% from 43.9% to 58.7%, was among the 40-49 year-old age group where there was a 79.9% turnout. Indeed, not only were there more older voters than younger ones, year-on-year that disproportion has increased. For example, since the early 2000s the number of under-30s declined from 10 to 4.5 million while over-60s increased from 7 to 10 million. Middle-aged voters living in less-fashionable towns out of the media glare may not have been as photogenic as young urban hipsters, but their votes counted too and there were many more of them.

What happened in the Polish election and what will happen next?

My 20-minute video blog on what I think happened in the Polish parliamentary election and what will happen next:

https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=8fc3e887-0de6-44bd-a258-b09f01805ac6

Who will win the Polish parliamentary election?

My 15-minute video on the possible scenarios following Poland’s October 15th parliamentary election:

https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=29bcb47e-62d7-42e6-8d6b-b098016f09bf