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
Although the cash-for-visas scandal knocked Poland’s ruling right-wing party off its stride, it also helped to ensure that migration remained a key issue in the closing stages of the Poland’s parliamentary election campaign. The governing party has tried to re-focus debate on to the EU ‘migration pact’ where the opposition remains vulnerable, and in such a closely-fought electoral contest the issue could be critical to the outcome.
Mobilisation is the key
Poland’s parliamentary election, scheduled for October 15th, is extremely closely-fought and evenly balanced. Opinion polls suggest that the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s governing party since autumn 2015, will emerge as the largest grouping but is likely to fall short of an overall majority. It is currently averaging 36% support but needs around 40% to have a good chance of securing an unprecedented third term in office. Somewhat surprisingly, given that the campaign was widely expected to be dominated by socio-economic issues, migration has emerged as one of the dominant campaign themes.
Given the extremely divided political scene there is very little evidence of any significant transfers of voter support between the governing and opposition camps. The election outcome will depend largely upon which of the two sides can mobilise their supporters to turnout and vote, and a relatively small number of voters could play a decisive role in determining the result. Most of the voters that Law and Justice lost since its 2019 election victory have not switched to the opposition parties and currently intend to abstain, so the key to the party’s success will be persuading these disillusioned electors to return to the fold. It has spent much of the campaign trying to find ways to win back these voters.
An emotive issue
An important element of Law and Justice’s campaign strategy has been to call multiple referendums on the same day as the parliamentary poll. These include questions designed specifically to remind voters about various unpopular policies and stances associated with the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping. Two of the four referendum questions are on migration issues, asking Poles if they oppose: the removal of a large fence erected last year along the Polish-Belarussian border to prevent the inflow of illegal migrants from the Middle East and Africa; and the EU’s latest proposals for dealing with migrants and asylum seekers. The vast majority of Poles oppose the EU ‘migration pact’ which will require member states that are less vulnerable to ‘irregular’ migrants crossing their border to either take in a minimum relocation quota or make ‘solidarity’ payments of 22,000 Euros per migrant not accepted.
The referendum questions are also meant to tie in with, and highlight, Law and Justice’s over-arching campaign themes of security and national sovereignty, and specifically to revive an issue around which it mobilised successfully in the run-up to the 2015 parliamentary election held at the peak of that year’s European migration crisis. Then, Law and Justice, at the time the main opposition party, lambasted the Civic Platform-led government for agreeing to admit 6,200 migrants as part of a similar EU-wide scheme for the compulsory relocation of mainly Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Law and Justice viewed the scheme as part of a wider clash of cultures, arguing that its political and symbolic importance went well beyond the numbers involved and that it threatened the country’s sovereignty, national identity and security.
Law and Justice has continued to argue that allowing mass immigration from Muslim-majority countries threatens Poland’s status as one of Europe’s safest countries. It accused Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk – who was prime minister from 2007-14 and then returned to Polish politics in 2021 following a stint as European Council President – of being one of those responsible for the EU’s loose migration policies. Migration is an emotive topic that always has the potential to become electorally salient, particularly if linked to broader national security concerns. So Law and Justice saw putting the issue at the heart of its re-election campaign as a key means of mobilising its core supporters and persuading its disillusioned former voters to return to the fold.
Turning the tables on Law and Justice
Knowing that migration was a very difficult issue for the opposition, Civic Platform tried to turn the tables on Law and Justice. It argued that the Belarussian border fence was ineffective, and highlighted what it said was the dissonance between the ruling party’s rhetoric on this issue and the fact that it had overseen Poland’s largest ever wave of immigration, including many more foreign workers from outside Europe than the EU was planning to transfer. The objective here was to create doubts among wavering former Law and Justice supporters – who were disillusioned with the party but may have considered returning to the fold if they felt that the current opposition would end up accepting the EU’s plans if elected to office – that the ruling party really was as effective at controlling immigration as it claimed to be.
Indeed, at one point it appeared that Law and Justice’s plan to make migration a key election issue could backfire. Media reports suggested that the government was embroiled in a damaging fraud scandal involving Polish consular officials in developing countries processing work visa applications at an accelerated pace and without proper checks through intermediary companies in exchange for bribes. At the end of August, Piotr Wawrzyk, the deputy foreign minister responsible for consular affairs, was suddenly dismissed on the same day that Poland’s central anti-corruption Bureau (CBA) carried out a search of the ministry, and then dropped as a Law and Justice election candidate. Then, in September the scandal escalated when prosecutors announced that corruption charges had been brought against seven individuals, with three being detained, over their suspected involvement in alleged visa fraud.
This allowed Civic Platform and the opposition to argue that, while the government presented itself as being opposed to uncontrolled illegal immigration, it was actually overseeing a corruption-prone system in which hundreds of thousands of work visas could have been allocated in a fraudulent way, including to those who might pose a national security risk. Mr Tusk dubbed it the ‘biggest scandal of the twenty-first century in Poland’.
Defusing the crisis
The visa scandal certainly knocked Law and Justice off-balance causing it to lose momentum at a critical point in the campaign. By appearing to show that the system for controlling permits for foreign workers coming to Poland was illusory and corrupt, the scandal opened up the party to charges of inconsistency and hypocrisy, undermining Law and Justice’s core campaign message that it was the only effective guarantor of secure Polish borders. It meant that the party had to exert energy on crisis management at a point when, following the success of its multiple referendums initiative, it was developing some real momentum for the first time in the campaign. It may also have planted some doubts among wavering Law and Justice voters as to whether the ruling party’s opposition to mass Muslim immigration was more rhetorical than real.
However, although the scandal may have fired up government opponents, it left Law and Justice voters and ‘undecideds’ distinctly unmoved and did not deliver the knock-out blow that many opposition politicians hoped for. Moreover, Law and Justice tried to defuse the crisis by suggesting that some of the problems identified dated back to the opposition’s time in power, and pointing out that the investigation only involved several hundred visa applications, not the hundreds of thousands claimed by the opposition, all of which were vetted with no security threats identified, and the majority in any case rejected. The party also insisted that it was the Polish state that had uncovered the scandal and took swift and decisive action against the suspected or implicated individuals. More broadly, Law and Justice argued that the government had brought migrant workers into Poland to fill specific labour market gaps, and that there was a clear difference between allowing verified migrants to enter the country in a legal and controlled way, and EU-imposed quotas of illegal, unverified migrants.
Keeping migration a top campaign issue
A series of further developments kept the migration issue at the top of the political agenda. Both the European Commission and Parliament sought clarifications on the cash-for-visas scandal, as did the German government which also introduced additional checks on its border with Poland to curb the flow of thousands of ‘irregular’ migrants passing along smuggling routes through these two countries. For its part, the Polish government introduced controls on the Slovak border, and re-iterated its opposition to the Union’s migration pact by rejecting a joint statement on the issue at the October EU leaders’ summit.
In fact, in spite of the reputational damage that Law and Justice may have suffered from the scandal, the party felt that ultimately it benefited from migration remaining a top campaign issue. It meant that the opposition was not focusing on other questions where the government was much more vulnerable, such as economic insecurity and the cost of living. Indeed, rather than highlighting the government’s hypocrisy on the migration issue as the opposition intended, Civic Platform’s attacks may have simply legitimised Law and Justice’s narrative that uncontrolled mass migration from predominantly Muslim countries undermined Polish security.
The continued salience of the migration issue also allowed Law and Justice to re-focus debate back on to the EU ‘migration pact’, where its stance was much more credible and coherent than the opposition’s, who it accused of only pretending to be against illegal immigration for electoral purposes. For its part, the opposition accused Law and Justice of misrepresenting the pact arguing that it included exemptions for countries under migratory pressure such as Poland, which has welcomed millions of refugees from Ukraine following the Russian invasion. However, Law and Justice pointed out that during the 2015 migration crisis Civic Platform was willing to accept EU compulsory relocation quotas, and that as European Council President Mr Tusk threatened the Polish government with sanctions for opposing the scheme. It argued that exemptions from the new migration pact would be at the whim of the Commission which, it said, was not a trustworthy partner and often applied politically-motivated double standards.
More broadly, Law and Justice argued that Civic Platform was unreliable on the migration issue, citing examples of prominent party figures who had interfered with the work of patrols on the Polish-Belarussian border. Berlin and Brussels’ interventions also played into Law and Justice’s narrative that foreign powers were trying to interfere in the election, and the party’s attacks on Mr Tusk whom it accused of working for Germany to undermine Polish interests. Finally, the release of ‘The Green Border’ (Zielona Granica), a film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland who is closely associated with the opposition, and which Law and Justice presented as a defamatory attack on Polish guards on the border with Belarus, also allowed the ruling party to portray itself as the only credible defender of national security.
Critical in a closely-fought contest?
Ultimately, the election is likely to be determined by whether the strongest driver of voting intentions ends up being dissatisfaction with Law and Justice’s record in government or wariness of handing the reins of power back to Mr Tusk and Civic Platform, together with the performance of the minor parties. Nonetheless, as a highly emotive issue, migration has, somewhat unexpectedly, come to play a key role in the closing stages of the campaign. Although the visa scandal made it something of a double-edged sword for Law and Justice, it also allowed the ruling party to turn the focus back on to the EU ‘migration pact’ where the opposition remained extremely vulnerable. This could be critical in such a closely-fought electoral contest, where the key to victory will be which of the two sides can mobilise their supporters most effectively.
Calling multiple referendums on the same day as the parliamentary election helped the right-wing ruling party seize back control of the campaign agenda and put the opposition on the backfoot. While media interest in the referendums has waned, they still provide the ruling party with an opportunity to steer election debate back on to its core issues.
Winning back disillusioned voters
Poland’s parliamentary election, scheduled for October 15th, is extremely closely fought and evenly balanced. Opinion polls suggest that the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s governing party since autumn 2015, will emerge as the largest party but fall short of an overall majority. It is currently averaging 36-37% support but needs around 40% to have a chance of securing an unprecedented third term in office. Given the extremely divided political scene there is very little evidence of any significant transfers of voter support between the governing and opposition camps, so the election outcome will depend largely upon which of the two sides can mobilise their supporters to turnout and vote.
Most of the voters that Law and Justice lost since its 2019 election victory have not switched to the opposition parties and currently intend to abstain, so the key to success will be persuading these disillusioned electors to return to the fold. Over the last few months, the party has been trying to find ways to ‘re-set’ the election and win back these voters. Law and Justice’s electoral successes up until now were based on delivering on its generous but costly social welfare spending programmes. And it was concerns about the economic situation and falling living standards that were the main reasons why many of Law and Justice’s erstwhile supporters became disillusioned with the party. So the first of these initiatives was a pledge to increase payments from its extremely popular child benefit programme from 500 to 800 złoties per child per month from the start of 2024.
Then it passed legislation paving the way for the establishment of a powerful new state commission tasked with investigating whether important economic and political decisions taken under Russian influence had undermined Poland’s national security. The commission is meant to examine actions between 2007-2022, a period covering both the current administration and the 2007-2015 governments led by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), now Poland’s main opposition party. Many commentators argued that the commission was aimed primarily at Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, whom Law and Justice has often accused of allowing Poland to be unduly influenced by Russia during his tenure as prime minister between 2007-14.
Finally, the party hoped to use its opposition to a new EU ‘migration pact’, providing for the compulsory relocation of ‘irregular’ migrants within the bloc, as a way of reviving an issue around which it had mobilised successfully in the run-up to the 2015 parliamentary election at the peak of that year’s European migration crisis. The pact, which will require EU member states that are less vulnerable to migrants crossing their border to either take in a minimum relocation quota from ‘frontline’ states or make ‘solidarity’ payments of 22,000 Euros for each migrant not accepted, is opposed by the vast majority of Poles.
Highlighting security and national sovereignty
However, for various reasons none of these initiatives proved to be campaign game-changers. So Law and Justice’s latest plan, announced in mid-August, is to organise a series of referendums on the same day as the parliamentary poll. The original idea was to hold a referendum with a single question asking Poles to reject the EU migration pact. However, the party’s polling and focus group research found that, although most Poles supported the government’s stance on this issue, it was just not salient enough this time around to cut through to voters in the way that Law and Justice hoped.
A referendum with just one question on this particular topic could also have ended up boosting support for the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) party, which has seen an upsurge in support over last few months. Many polls suggest that it could hold the balance of power as the ‘third force’ in the new parliament. The Confederation has an even more radical approach to migration and no record in office to defend, so can easily outflank Law and Justice by, for example, arguing that migrants should not receive state welfare benefits.
So Law and Justice decided to add three other referendum questions asking Poles if they oppose: the sale of state-owned strategic economic assets to foreign entities; the removal of a fence erected last year on the Polish-Belarussian border to prevent illegal migration; and raising the retirement age, which Law and Justice lowered to 60 for women and 65 for men. These questions are meant to tie in with and highlight Law and Justice’s over-arching campaign themes of security and national sovereignty; its election slogan is ‘A secure future for Poles’ (Bezpieczna przyszłość Polaków).
Political ploy or voice of the people?
The referendum questions are also awkward ones for the opposition and designed specifically to remind voters about various unpopular policies and stances associated with Civic Platform, and particularly Mr Tusk. For its part, the opposition argues that the referendums are pointless because they ask questions about issues that are already settled and where there is no political contestation. They also accuse Law and Justice of misrepresenting the EU migration pact, arguing that it includes an exemption for countries that are under migratory pressure such as Poland, which has welcomed millions of refugees from Ukraine following the Russian invasion and could actually benefit from the system of solidarity payments.
The opposition says that running the two campaigns simultaneously is simply a ploy to help Law and Justice circumvent campaign finance regulations because it can use expenditure on the referendums to promote the party’s core election issues. This, they say, will negatively affect the transparency and integrity of the electoral process because, while election campaign financing laws in Poland closely scrutinise expenditure by political parties, in practice it will be impossible to distinguish election from referendum campaign expenses.
Civic Platform has also tried to turn these issues back on the ruling party. It accuses the government of itself having sold off parts of a major state-owned oil company to Saudi and Hungarian buyers. It argues that the Belarussian border fence is ineffective and that Law and Justice has overseen a huge increase in both legal and illegal immigration. The opposition also criticises the wording of the proposed questions for using, as they put it, loaded and emotive language designed to demonise its opponents and provoke a specific response in favour of Law and Justice’s current policies. The real purpose of the referendum, they say, is to boost turnout among the ruling party’s core electorate.
Law and Justice counters that calling the referendums simply acknowledges the Polish nation’s constitutional right to influence politics directly, and that it is important to give ordinary Poles a decisive voice on these important issues. Holding the referendums on election day, in the same polling stations and with the participation of the same electoral commissions, minimises costs. Moreover, if they are passed, the referendums would ensure that any future government formed by the current opposition parties would not be able to ignore the will of the people on these issues.
Law and Justice argues that such a mandate is necessary because the opposition opposed building the wall on the Belarussian border and Mr Tusk has in the past expressed support for the mass privatisation of Poland’s remaining state-owned assets. It was, they point out, the previous Civic Platform-led government that increased the retirement age to 67 and, during the 2015 migration crisis, was willing to accept EU compulsory migrant relocation quotas. Law and Justice also argues that exemptions from the new migration pact would be at the whim of the European Commission which, it says, is not a trustworthy partner and often applies double standards.
Engage or ignore?
Moreover, although, by encouraging voters to boycott the referendums, the opposition may reduce turnout enough so that it does not cross the 50% threshold required for the plebiscites to be constitutionally valid (polls suggest it is hovering around this mark), this allows Law and Justice to accuse its opponents of being anti-democratic and acting in bad faith. Boycott calls also risk confusing and de-mobilising opposition voters. In order not to be counted in the referendum turnout, voters will have to refuse the ballot paper while still accepting those for the parliamentary election. Even taking the referendum voting card but not filling it in, or casting an invalid vote, will still be treated as participation.
Indeed, even if the opposition ignores the referendums and refuses to engage substantively with the four questions, the plebiscites will still take place and Law and Justice can accuse its opponents of having a hidden agenda and being secretly in favour of implementing these measures. On the other hand, engaging with the referendum questions risks legitimating the process, and even just calling overtly for a boycott (even if this means simply explaining to its supporters how to abstain), risks shifting the focus of debate back on to Law and Justice’s chosen issues.
Both sides want polarisation
More fundamentally, the referendum is aimed at polarising the election as a straight choice between Law and Justice and Civic Platform. Law and Justice feels that such a polarisation is in its interests and could persuade many of its more reluctant supporters to turnout and vote, particularly if the opposition becomes synonymous with Mr Tusk. Although he is a very articulate and effective critic of Law and Justice, polls show that Mr Tusk is himself an extremely polarising figure, with loyal devotees on the opposition side but also fierce opponents among the Law and Justice core electorate.
Law and Justice’s original 2015 election victory reflected widespread disillusionment with the country’s ruling elite and a strong prevailing mood that it was time for change. Given that Mr Tusk was prime minister for seven out of the eight years that Civic Platform was in office, few politicians better embody the previous government. Law and Justice believes that, however frustrated Poles may be with the current administration, most of them do not want to see a return to the status quo ante with which they still associate Mr Tusk.
Interestingly, Civic Platform also believes that it benefits from such a polarisation because this increases the imperative for the government’s opponents to consolidate and rally around the largest opposition party. The party’s campaign strategy appears to be based on the idea most Poles are tired of the government and that it only needs to persuade them to vote for Civic Platform and Mr Tusk if they want change.
Returning to Law and Justice’s core issues
The multiple referendums initiative helped Law and Justice to seize control of the election campaign narrative and put the opposition on the backfoot. The referendum questions clearly strike a chord with many voters and have exposed what the ruling party says is the opposition’s questionable record on these issues. Even if they are questions that are mostly of interest to the ruling party’s core supporters, it is the mobilisation of these voters, and winning back those ex-Law and Justice supporters who plan to abstain, that will be critical in determining the election outcome.
For sure, news cycles inevitably move on and the initial interest surrounding the referendums has already waned somewhat. But the fact that they will still take place on polling day means that the referendums will not fade entirely as some earlier hoped-for ‘game changers’ did. They also provide Law and Justice with a pretext to steer debate back on to its core issues if at any point over the next few weeks the ruling party feels that is it losing control of the campaign agenda and the narrative is shifting on to issues more favourable to the opposition.
Migration is not the most important issue in Poland’s October parliamentary election but it could become salient if linked to national security concerns. In a closely-fought contest, where the key to victory is mobilisation of each side’s electoral base, it may play a decisive role in determining the outcome, although the main beneficiary could end up being a radical right challenger party.
Migrant relocation back on the agenda
Last month, migration emerged as a campaign issue in the run-up to Poland’s October 15th parliamentary election. This followed EU states agreeing, by a qualified majority, to a new ‘migration pact’ providing for the compulsory relocation of ‘irregular’ migrants within the bloc, which the Polish government – led, since autumn 2015, by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party – along with Hungary tried unsuccessfully to block. The pact would require EU member states that are less vulnerable to migrants crossing their border to either take in a minimum relocation quota from ‘frontline’ states or make ‘solidarity’ payments of 22,000 Euros for each migrant not accepted.
Law and Justice faces a tight election and was hoping that migration would develop into a major issue dividing the main parties as it did during the 2015 parliamentary election, held at the peak of that year’s European migration crisis. Then, Law and Justice, at the time the main opposition party, lambasted the government led by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the principal opposition grouping, for agreeing to admit 6,200 migrants as part of a similar EU-wide scheme for the compulsory relocation of mainly Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Law and Justice viewed the scheme as part of a wider clash of cultures, arguing that its political and symbolic importance went well beyond the numbers involved and that it threatened the country’s sovereignty, national identity and security. The party warned that there was a serious danger of Poland making the same mistakes as many West European states with large Muslim communities, as the scheme could lead to admitting migrants who did not respect the country’s laws and customs and would try to impose their way of life.
Law and Justice has continued to argue that allowing mass immigration from Muslim-majority countries threatens Poland’s status as one of Europe’s safest countries; referring, for example, to the recent riots that swept across France after police shot dead a 17-year-old boy with Algerian roots. Compulsory EU migrant relocation also remains overwhelmingly unpopular: three opinion polls conducted since the migration pact was announced showed 67-76% of Poles opposed to the idea. Law and Justice also pointed out that, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, several million refugees entered Poland and (while many later moved to other countries and some returned home) over a million were believed to have stayed in the country; an enormous humanitarian effort that the EU has taken for granted, providing Poland with only 200 Euros for each refugee hosted.
With the vast majority of Poles strongly opposed to the EU’s plans, Law and Justice was banking on the migration issue helping the party secure an unprecedented third term in office. In an attempt to make it a major campaign issue, Law and Justice is planning to hold a national referendum on Poland’s participation in the EU migration pact alongside the parliamentary election. This should also help secure the 50% turnout threshold required for a referendum to be constitutionally valid.
Mr Tusk goes on the attack
Poland’s opposition parties knew that migration was a very difficult issue for them and that they could not allow it to dominate the election. They argued that a referendum was unnecessary because it was clear that there was a broad public consensus against EU relocation quotas. The opposition accused Law and Justice of using the issue to distract Poles from the government’s other failings: the rising cost of living and economic insecurity, its inability to secure frozen EU coronavirus recovery funds, and dissatisfaction with the country’s restrictive abortion laws. Both the opposition and EU officials also accused Law and Justice of misrepresenting the migration pact, arguing that no country would be forced to receive relocated migrants. Indeed, having taken in so many Ukrainian refugees, Poland would, they said, probably be exempt from having to make ‘solidarity payments’ and could even end up being a beneficiary of them.
However, notwithstanding the fact that Law and Justice opposed the forced relocation of illegal migrants in principle, the ruling party argued that such exemptions would not be automatic and the pact’s provisions could be used by the EU political establishment as leverage in clashes with Poland over other issues. A referendum was necessary, they said, to legitimate the Polish government’s stance and because they did not trust assurances from EU officials who had a record of being duplicitous with, and applying double standards to, Law and Justice.
In fact, knowing the dangers that the issue posed, Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk – who was prime minister from 2007-14 and then returned to Polish politics in 2021 following a stint as European Council President – tried to turn the tables on Law and Justice. In a series of viral social media videos published at the beginning of July, Mr Tusk highlighted what he argued was the dissonance between the ruling party’s rhetoric on this issue and the fact that it had overseen Poland’s largest ever wave of immigration, including many more foreign workers from outside Europe than the EU was planning to transfer.
Mr Tusk said that Law and Justice was preparing legislation that would make it easier for even more migrants from Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and Pakistan to enter Poland. He was referring to a law drafted by the government to address labour market shortages that involved expanding the list of countries whose citizens could apply for a visa directly from the foreign ministry rather than via a local Polish consulate. Mr Tusk also accused the government of having already issued work permits to more than 130,000 migrants from Muslim countries in 2022 alone, fifty times more than in 2015, the last year that Civic Platform was in office.
Law and Justice on the back foot
Law and Justice responded by saying that the 130,000 figure was for work permits alone and only a fifth of these applicants were actually issued with visas entitling them to stay in Poland temporarily. They said that there was a clear difference between migrants verified by the Polish government who were allowed to enter the country legally in a controlled way, and EU-imposed quotas of illegal migrants. Law and Justice also argued that Civic Platform was only pretending to be against illegal immigration for electoral purposes, noting that as European Council President Mr Tusk had threatened Warsaw with sanctions for opposing the original EU relocation scheme. More broadly, Law and Justice argued that Civic Platform was unreliable on this issue, citing examples of prominent party figures who had interfered with the work of patrols on the Polish-Belarussian border.
At the same time, other opposition parties, commentators and migrant rights groups criticised Mr Tusk for using anti-immigrant language, particularly his allusions to the French riots, and the fact that he included the prefix ‘Islamic Republic’ when referring to the Iranian and Pakistani states, and concluded by talking about the need for Poland to ‘take back control of its borders’. Indeed, in the past Civic Platform had itself accused Law and Justice of exploiting anti-Muslim rhetoric for political gain, and Mr Tusk’s statements ran counter to its own political base’s very pro-immigration views.
Nonetheless, Mr Tusk was clearly prepared to take a risk and hammer away at Law and Justice on this issue. In fact, most anti-government commentators appeared to either accept Mr Tusk’s claim that his objective was simply to highlight Law and Justice’s hypocrisy, or felt that it was necessary tactically for him to respond in this way to defuse an extremely difficult issue for the opposition. Mr Tusk’s migration pivot was an interesting case of how the Civic Platform leader appears to be mastering the tactic of neutralising problematic issues by turning the tables on the ruling party. Earlier this year, for example, he responded to a Law and Justice pledge to raise increase its flagship child benefit programme payments from 500 to 800 złoties per child per month from the start of 2024 by making a counter-proposal to increase them immediately.
For sure, most Poles do not see Mr Tusk as particularly credible on this issue: a July poll by the United Surveys agency for the right-wing ‘wpolityce.pl’ news portal found that, by a 58% to 28% margin, respondents did not feel that Civic Platform would defend Poland against mass immigration from Muslim countries. Rather, his attacks on Law and Justice’s migration policy were meant to knock the ruling party off-balance and undermine its narrative on an issue that it previously felt that it ‘owned’. Mr Tusk’s message was aimed particularly at wavering former Law and Justice voters currently disillusioned with the ruling party but who, thanks to the referendum gambit, might return to the fold if they felt that, if elected to office, the current opposition parties would end up accepting the EU migration pact. Indeed, it unsettled Law and Justice to the extent that, two days after Mr Tusk published his video, the government withdrew its proposed new visa access rules.
Who will benefit?
A July survey by the IBRiS agency for the ‘Rzeczpospolita’ daily found that most Poles (35%) said that inflation and the cost of living were the most significant election issues followed by national security (22%), health (17%) and the war in Ukraine (11%) with only 6% citing migrant relocation. Law and Justice will not be able to recreate the febrile political atmosphere that surrounded the migration issue in 2015, and even then it was not the most important one for most voters. However, migration remains an emotive topic and has the capacity to become electorally salient, particularly if linked to national security concerns. For example, over the last two years thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa have attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to cross over into Poland with the encouragement of the Belarussian authorities, and this is now even more of a potential flashpoint with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries stationed across the border.
Moreover, given that there is little evidence of significant voter transfers between the governing and opposition camps, the key to victory in this year’s election will be the two sides’ respective levels of mobilisation of their core electorates. IBRiS found the number of respondents for whom migrant relocation was a major issue increased to 10% among Law and Justice voters, while another 40% cited security concerns more generally. In a closely-fought election, the migration issue could thus be crucial to determining the outcome.
However, holding the migration referendum to coincide with parliamentary polling day may instead end up boosting support for the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) party. This grouping has recently seen an upsurge in support and currently looks set to hold the balance of power in the new parliament as the ‘third force’ in Polish politics. The Confederation has an even more radical approach to the migration issue and no record in office to defend, so can easily outflank Law and Justice. It has, for example, suggested that Poles should be asked whether they support immigrants receiving state welfare benefits. ‘Anti-system’ challenger party electorates often contain many people who express support for them in opinion polls but do not actually end up voting. Combining the election and migration referendum could encourage such ‘soft’ Confederation voters to actually turn out. This would be ironic given that one of the reasons why Law and Justice raised the migration issue originally was to stymie the Confederation’s growing electoral bandwagon.
Although polarisation of the political scene has led to an increase in support for the main liberal-centrist opposition party this has been largely at the expense of other, smaller anti-government groupings. Opposition parties have also yet to find an effective response to the rise of a radical right grouping that looks likely to hold the balance of power in the new parliament.
The political scene polarises further
Last month, the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping, saw a sharp increase in its opinion poll support. The party – led by Donald Tusk, who was prime minister from 2007-14 and returned to Polish politics in 2021 following a stint as European Council President – was the beneficiary of the further polarisation of an already bitterly-divided political scene. This followed the passage of legislation paving the way for the establishment of a powerful new state commission tasked with investigating whether important economic and political decisions taken under Russian influence undermined the country’s national security.
Supporters of the government – led, since autumn 2015, by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party – framed the commission as an urgent and necessary means of defending democracy by investigating and rooting out all potential Russian influences in Polish public life. They argued that Poles had a right to know, and make up their own minds about, how elected representatives and other officials had fulfilled their functions.
However, given that the commission’s members would be appointed by the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of the Polish parliament where Law and Justice has a majority, and its chair nominated by the prime minister, the opposition said that its real purpose was to target and undermine the ruling party’s opponents ahead of the autumn parliamentary election. Indeed, many commentators argued that the probe was aimed primarily at Mr Tusk, whom Law and Justice has often accused of having been too friendly towards, and allowing Poland to be unduly influenced by, Russia during his tenure as prime minister. Moreover, given that the commission’s powers included a provision to exclude public officials from office for up to 10 years – without, government critics argued, the involvement of an independent court (a claim contested by Law and Justice) – the opposition portrayed its formation as one of the most dramatic moments in Poland’s post-1989 democracy.
In fact, Law and Justice-backed President Andrzej Duda proposed amendments that would remove the law’s most controversial provisions, including the commission’s ability to exclude officials from public office. Nonetheless, the opposition argued that that, even with the presidential amendments, the commission was still an unconstitutional hybrid combining administrative and judicial functions, and the manner of its appointment empowered Law and Justice to use it to slander its political opponents.
Polarisation boosts Mr Tusk
The main political effect of the debate surrounding the commission was to raise the stakes in the up-coming election even further which, in turn, led to a strengthening of the emotional polarisation between the pro- and anti-government camps, and specifically between Law and Justice and Civic Platform as the two leading protagonists. This further polarisation benefited Civic Platform because it increased the imperative for the government’s opponents to consolidate and rally around the largest opposition party to defeat Law and Justice as the top priority. It also focused public attention upon, and forced the other anti-government parties to rally around, Mr Tusk as the commission’s apparent main target and embodiment of opposition to it.
This dynamic could be seen in the run-up to the huge anti-government protest march in Warsaw on June 4th, the anniversary of the partially-free 1989 elections that paved the way for the collapse of Poland’s communist regime, organised by Civic Platform to mobilise the opposition around Mr Tusk as its figurehead. The march became a rallying point for protest against both the Russian influence commission specifically and Law and Justice more generally, turning into one of the largest demonstrations in post-communist Poland and thereby providing a morale-booster for the opposition. This is important because, given the extremely divided Polish political scene, there is very little evidence of any significant transfers of support between the governing and opposition camps, so the key to this year’s election will be the two sides’ respective levels of mobilisation.
The emergence of the commission as an issue in the week leading up to the march also forced some other opposition leaders, who had earlier been wary about offering it their full support, to participate enthusiastically – and then, on the day, be completely marginalised by Mr Tusk. Unlike many Polish opposition politicians, Mr Tusk is often good at reading the public mood and used a march that had been planned many weeks earlier to very successfully tap into this anti-Law and Justice backlash. According to the ‘Politico Europe’ aggregator of Polish opinion polls, although Law and Justice remained the largest party averaging 36% support, Civic Platform saw its ratings increase from 27% at the beginning of May to 31% in July.
Will Mr Tusk mobilise Law and Justice voters?
Although Mr Tusk is tactically adroit and often able to put Law and Justice on the defensive, most recently over the government’s apparently insufficiently restrictive immigration policy, up until now Civic Platform’s electoral strategy has been based primarily on mobilising around a very radical critique of the ruling party. This is rooted in the premise that there is a natural anti-Law and Justice majority that simply needs to be mobilised by whichever grouping is best placed to defeat the ruling party. But while many Poles are clearly exhausted with the incumbent government, it questionable whether the underlying appetite for political change is sufficiently strong for Civic Platform to win the election without also setting out a more comprehensive programmatic alternative.
Moreover, Law and Justice also feels that it is in its interests to polarise Polish politics in this way, particularly if the opposition becomes synonymous with Mr Tusk. Although he is a very articulate and effective critic of the ruling party, opinion polls also show that Mr Tusk is one of Poland’s most distrusted politicians. Given that he was prime minister for seven out of the eight years that Civic Platform was in office, few politicians better embody the previous government which came to be viewed by many Poles as lacking social sensitivity and out-of-touch with their needs. Mr Tusk is also a very polarising figure, with loyal devotees but also fierce opponents among the Law and Justice core electorate, so giving him a higher profile may actually persuade some of the ruling party’s more reluctant supporters to turn out and vote. Most of the voters that Law and Justice has lost since its 2019 election victory have not switched to the opposition and currently intend to abstain, so the key to its success this time will be persuading them to return to the fold.
Squeezing the smaller opposition parties
Another problem for the opposition is that the increase in support for Civic Platform appears to have come largely at the expense of the other, smaller parties and groupings. The opposition’s combined vote and projected seat share in the new parliament appear to have stalled short of an overall majority; indeed, according to some polls they may have actually fallen. For the moment, this appears to have had less impact on the ‘Left’ (Lewica) grouping. This is struggling to win over new voters and remains extremely vulnerable to being squeezed by tactical voting as the election campaign develops a polarising dynamic. But support for the ‘Left’ has, according to ‘Politico Europe’, plateaued at around 8%, above the 5% parliamentary representation threshold for individual parties
Rather, Civic Platform appears to be squeezing the ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga) grouping, an electoral coalition comprising the centrist Polish Peasant Party (PSL), that traces its roots to the nineteenth century agrarian movement, and liberal-centrist newcomer ‘Poland 2050’ (Polska 2050) set up by former TV celebrity Szymon Hołownia to capitalise on his strong showing in the 2020 presidential election when he finished third with 13.9% of the vote. The alliance was formed in April because ‘Poland 2050’ was losing support and the Peasant Party hovering dangerously close to 5%, in the hope that the two groupings combined would comfortably cross the higher 8% parliamentary threshold for electoral coalitions. Indeed, according to ‘Politico Europe’, the ‘Third Way’ initially averaged around 14% support.
However, particularly after the June 4th march, support for the ‘Third Way’ has been on a downward trend and the grouping now appears at serious risk of failing to cross the 8% threshold. The opposition will not secure a majority in the next parliament simply by shuffling around support within its own ranks, especially if this means that one of the smaller parties fails to cross the electoral thresholds. All of these votes will then be wasted and there could be a repeat of the 2015 election when Law and Justice secured an outright majority with only 38% of the vote because left-wing parties and groupings fell short of the thresholds.
The Confederation could be kingmaker
The opposition’s other problem is that it has not yet found an effective response to the rise in support for the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) grouping which, according to ‘Politico Europe’, is averaging around 12% in the polls. The same polls suggest that the Confederation is increasingly likely to hold the balance of power in the next parliament.
The party has professionalised its image by sidelining its most controversial figures and giving a higher profile to younger, more charismatic leaders who can communicate its radical programme in a more measured and reasonable way. The Confederation has developed a strong on-line presence and built its profile through the social media, which is its younger core electorate’s main source of political information. The small-state party has also benefited from the strong pivot to the left on socio-economic issues by Civic Platform which was formed originally as a pro-free market party but, in an effort to outbid Law and Justice on social spending, has now almost completely abandoned its earlier liberal roots. As a political formation that has always attacked both Law and Justice and the other opposition parties with equal vigour, the increased polarisation of the political scene has, if anything, actually strengthened the Confederation among Poles looking for a credible ‘third force’.
Most commentators assume that the Confederation will come to some kind of post-election accommodation with Law and Justice because its nationalist wing is nominally ideologically closer to the current ruling party. However, it is difficult to envisage a grouping like the Confederation, for whom reducing state intervention is a core element of its appeal, being given a significant say on economic matters in a government led by Law and Justice which owes much of its recent political success to large social welfare programmes. Moreover, the Confederation’s own long-term strategic goal is to replace Law and Justice as the dominant party on the Polish right.
In fact, the Confederation’s voter base is quite ideologically diverse, exemplified by the fact that supporters of its 2020 presidential candidate Krzysztof Bosak divided evenly between the Law and Justice and Civic Platform candidates in the second round run-off. Indeed, in some ways it may be easier for the current opposition parties to accommodate the Confederation’s economic policy demands. However, it will be difficult for the Confederation to maintain its radical ‘anti-system’ image if it ends up making the kind of compromises and deals that are required to participate in a governing coalition. The most likely scenario, therefore, is for the party to prop up a minority government through an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition agreement. So even if the current opposition parties can come to an arrangement with the Confederation, this is likely to produce a weak and unstable government, almost certainly paving the way for another, this time earlier, parliamentary election.
The law paving the way for a powerful new state commission investigating Russian influence in Polish public life has further polarised an already bitterly-divided political scene. Both the main liberal-centrist opposition and right-wing ruling party believe they will benefit from this ahead of autumn’s parliamentary election.
Undermining or strengthening democracy?
Last month, the Polish political scene was shaken up by the passage of legislation paving the way for the establishment of a powerful new state commission tasked with investigating whether important economic and political decisions taken under Russian influence undermined the country’s national security. The commission would have wide-ranging powers to access classified materials, order searches and seizures of evidence, and investigate the processes behind administrative and policy decisions. It could also overturn those decisions deemed to have been made under, and punish public officials who succumbed to, Moscow’s influence.
The commission will examine actions between 2007-2022, a period covering the 2007-2015 governments led by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), now Poland’s main opposition party, as well the current administration led by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, the country’s governing party since autumn 2015. Indeed, many commentators argue that the probe is aimed primarily at Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, who was prime minister from 2007-14 and returned to Polish politics in 2021 following a stint in Brussels as European Council President. Law and Justice has often accused Mr Tusk of having been too friendly towards, and allowing Poland to be unduly influenced by, Russia during his tenure as prime minister. The commission’s critics refer to the law establishing it as ‘Lex Tusk’ or the ‘Tusk Law’.
The government’s opponents have strongly criticised the proposal as creating an unconstitutional body that is open to abuse, portraying it as one of the most dramatic moments in Poland’s post-1989 democracy. Given that the commission’s members will be appointed by the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of the Polish parliament where Law and Justice has a majority, and its chair nominated by the prime minister, the opposition says that its real purpose is to act as a political weapon designed to target and undermine the ruling party’s opponents ahead of this autumn’s parliamentary election.
Indeed, they argue that the commission has such broad powers that it could even be used to eliminate Law and Justice’s political rivals from public office without the involvement of an independent court. The commission would, as part of an administrative decision, be empowered to unilaterally issue so-called ‘remedial measures’ (środki zaradcze) in cases where it deemed that Russian influence led to the undermining of Polish national interests including: cancelling administrative and business decisions, preventing officials from receiving a security clearance, and disqualifying them from positions where they would manage public funds, for up to 10 years.
The government’s supporters, on the other hand, have framed the commission as an urgent and necessary means of defending and strengthening democracy and national interests by investigating and rooting out all potential Russian influences in Polish public life. They argue that Poles have a right to know, and make up their own minds about, how elected representatives and other officials have fulfilled their functions, suggesting that only those with something to hide were opposed to the commission.
They point out that the probe was Law and Justice’s response to a call from Mr Tusk last October for the establishment of a commission of inquiry specifically to investigate Moscow’s influence on the government’s energy policy. The opposition say that Mr Tusk called for this investigation to be conducted by a parliamentary committee; Law and Justice responds that the proposed commission is based upon an analogous – and, they argue, successful – ‘verification’ body set up to investigate irregularities during the post-communist ‘re-privatisation’ of Warsaw real estate.
Law and Justice also insists that the commission does not have the power to deprive anyone from holding public office without due process and that its decisions can be appealed to the administrative court. However, there is disagreement as to whether the ‘remedial measures’ take effect immediately or only when the judicial review is completed. The government’s critics also argue that the administrative court can only consider whether the commission followed the correct procedure not the substance of its rulings.
Mr Duda’s dramatic about-turn
In fact, in a sudden and dramatic about-turn only four days after approving the law establishing the commission, Law and Justice-backed President Andrzej Duda proposed three key amendments to it. Firstly, and most importantly, removing the ‘remedial provisions’ allowing the commission to prevent officials from receiving a security clearance and exclude them from public office. Instead, the commission will be able to issue a statement declaring that a person was found to have acted under Russian influence, and therefore a proper performance of their duties in the public interest could not be guaranteed. Secondly, allowing appeals against the commission’s decisions to be made through a general court rather than the administrative court system. Thirdly, specifying that it should comprise non-partisan experts rather than sitting legislators.
Opposition politicians mocked the President for changing his mind and argued that, even with the proposed amendments, the commission was still an unconstitutional hybrid combining administrative and judicial functions. The manner of the commission’s appointment, they said, still empowered Law and Justice to use it to slander its political opponents, particularly given the unclear definition of what constituted acting under ‘Russian influence’, and called for it to be scrapped entirely.
For his part, Mr Duda argued that the commission’s main purpose of revealing the truth about the influence of Russian agents in Poland was preserved. He defended his actions by saying that, even when he had allowed the law establishing the commission to come into force, he also raised concerns by asking the Polish constitutional tribunal to examine its most contentious provisions However, Mr Duda was no longer confident that this internally conflicted body would be able to review the law in a timely fashion.
Some commentators argue that Mr Duda may have bowed to international pressure. The European Commission – which has clashed repeatedly with the Warsaw over Law and Justice’s judicial reforms, and is currently blocking the country’s access to millions of Euros of coronavirus recovery fund monies – almost immediately raised concerns about the Russian influence commission’s conformity with EU law. But Mr Duda is unlikely to have been influenced by pressure from Brussels and it is more probable that his sudden change of heart was prompted by criticisms from the USA. Maintaining and strengthening Poland’s military alliance with Washington, whom Poland views as its main ally in countering Russia expansionism, has been Mr Duda’s top foreign policy priority since the invasion of Ukraine.
Although the Sejm has now approved Mr Duda’s amendments, the opposition-controlled Senate second chamber has the power to delay the legislation for a further month so the commission may not begin work until mid-August, making the original plan for an initial report in mid-September, just weeks before the election, unrealistic. It is also unclear how an ongoing opposition boycott will affect the commission’s legitimacy and level of media interest in its work, and whether it will impose draconian penalties if opposition-linked witnesses refuse to give evidence.
Strengthening pro- versus anti-government polarisation
The main political effect of the debate surrounding the formation of the commission has been to raise the stakes in the up-coming election even further, with the opposition arguing that if Law and Justice wins another term of office this will represent a decisive hammer-blow to Polish democracy. This, in turn, has led to a strengthening of the emotional polarisation between the pro- and anti-government camps; and specifically between Law and Justice and Civic Platform as the two leading protagonists. This is important because, given the already extremely divided Polish political scene, there is very little evidence of any significant transfers of support between the governing and opposition camps, so the key to this year’s election will be the two sides’ respective levels of mobilisation.
This further polarisation benefits Civic Platform because it increases the imperative for the government’s opponents to consolidate and rally around the largest opposition party to defeat Law and Justice as the top priority. It also focuses public attention upon, and forces the other anti-government parties to rally around, Mr Tusk as both the Russian influence commission’s apparent main target and the embodiment of opposition to it. This makes it very difficult for other opposition party leaders to develop a distinctive alternative pitch.
This dynamic could be seen in the run-up to huge anti-government march in Warsaw on June 4th, the anniversary of the partially-free 1989 elections that paved the way for the collapse of Poland’s communist regime, organised by Civic Platform to mobilise the opposition electorate around Mr Tusk as its figurehead. The march became a rallying point for protest against both the Russian influence commission specifically and Law and Justice more generally, turning into one of the largest demonstrations in post-communist Poland. The emergence of the commission as an issue at the beginning of the week leading up to the march forced some other opposition leaders who had earlier been wary about offering it their full support to participate enthusiastically – but then, on the day, be completely over-shadowed by Mr Tusk.
However, Law and Justice also feels that it is in its interests to polarise Polish politics in this way, particularly if the opposition becomes synonymous with Mr Tusk. Although he is a very articulate and effective critic of Law and Justice, opinion polls show that Mr Tusk is also one of Poland’s most distrusted politicians. Law and Justice’s original 2015 election victory over Civic Platform reflected widespread disillusionment with the country’s ruling elite and a strong prevailing mood that it was time for change. Given that Mr Tusk was prime minister for seven out of the eight years that Civic Platform was in office, few politicians better embody the previous government which came to be viewed by many Poles as lacking social sensitivity and out-of-touch with their needs.
Law and Justice is also hoping that the commission’s revelations about how Mr Tusk developed Poland’s relations with Russia when he was prime minister will strengthen the negative view that many voters have of him. Indeed, Mr Tusk is himself a very polarising figure, with loyal devotees but also fierce opponents among the Law and Justice core electorate. So giving him a higher profile may actually persuade some of the ruling party’s more reluctant supporters to turn out and vote. Most of the voters that Law and Justice has lost since its 2019 election victory have not switched to the opposition parties and currently intend to abstain, so the key to its election success will be persuading these electors to return to the fold. However, Mr Tusk is also a formidable political operator and not to be under-estimated, particularly if Civic Platform can portray him as the victim of a Law and Justice-initiated witch-hunt.
Socio-economic issues are still the key
Huge controversy surrounding the Russian influence commission’s formation has certainly changed the dynamics of the Polish political debate during this ‘pre-election campaign’ period. However, by removing some of its most controversial features Mr Duda’s amendments may have de-fanged it somewhat as a matter of political contestation. It is also questionable how much cut-through the commission will have as an issue that swings voters or whether media interest will shift back to socio-economic issues. The key to Law and Justice’s electoral successes has been delivering on its generous but costly social welfare spending programmes. It was concerns about the economic situation and falling living standards that were the main reasons why many of its erstwhile supporters became disillusioned with the party. And it is these kind of bread-and-butter issues, rather than the constitutional questions raised by the Russian influence commission, that Poles care most about and are probably still the key to determining the election outcome.
Opinion polls suggest that neither of the two main political blocs are likely to secure a majority after Poland’s autumn parliamentary election and that a radical right party may hold the balance of power. This creates pre- and post-election strategic dilemmas for the both the challenger grouping, and the current governing and opposition camps.
A party for provincial young men?
The radical right-wing Confederation (Konfederacja) party is a political conglomerate mainly comprising free-market economic libertarians, originally clustered around the veteran political eccentric Janusz Korwin-Mikke, and radical nationalists from the National Movement (RN) grouping. Focusing primarily on tax cuts and reducing the size of the welfare state, in the most recent autumn 2019 parliamentary election the party secured 6.8% of the votes and won 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm, Poland’s more powerful lower legislative chamber. In spite of the apparent tensions between its component parts, the grouping held together and in the June-July 2020 presidential election its candidate, the articulate and relatively young nationalist politician Krzysztof Bosak, finished fourth, again with 6.8%.
The Confederation’s success suggested that there was a social base for its brand of politics, comprising a segment of right-leaning voters who felt that the large state support and social welfare programmes that were the key to the electoral success of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s ruling party since autumn 2015, did not address their concerns. The Confederation enjoys particularly high levels of support among younger men living in smaller towns and rural areas. For example, a March 2023 survey conducted by the Ipsos agency for the OKO.press portal found that 27% of under-40s supported the Confederation (11% across all voters), rising to 37% among younger men (11% younger women). These voters often felt that they had limited chances for professional and career advancement, were frustrated with the apparent ‘glass ceiling’ of vested interests and corrupt networks that stifled opportunities for them, and did not see state support as the solution to their problems.
Last summer, the Confederation saw a dip in support. While opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the only major Polish political grouping to criticise the Law and Justice government for engaging too actively in the war. Arguing that Poland’s interests were not always identical to Ukraine’s, the party was sceptical about the very generous aid provided by Warsaw to the Ukrainian government. It also opposed granting the huge numbers of refugees who came across the border to Poland what it argued were special privileges at the expense of Polish society. But this backfired amid overwhelming public support for Ukraine and the refugees.
The Confederation bounces back
However, recent polls have shown an increase in support for the Confederation. According to the ‘Pooling the Poles’ micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys, the party is averaging 10% which translates into 41 seats. The same polls suggest that neither the current ruling party nor the liberal, centrist and left-wing opposition groupings will secure an outright majority after this autumn’s election, leaving the Confederation in the position of kingmaker in the new parliament.
Why has this happened? Firstly, the Confederation has benefited from a strong pivot to the left by the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping. Civic Platform was formed originally as a pro-free market party but has now almost completely abandoned its earlier roots and, in an effort to outbid Law and Justice on social spending, alarmed liberals by adopting the language of, and many of the economic policies associated with, the left. These include recent pledges to offer interest-free mortgages for under-45s buying their first home, and state benefits of 1500 złoties per month for mothers returning to work after maternity leave. This has created an opening on Civic Platform’s traditional liberal flank which the Confederation is trying to exploit by opposing large-scale fiscal transfers and calling for lower, simpler taxes and less state regulation.
At the same time, as a result of the recent crisis over grain imports, the Confederation feels that its risky Ukrainian war narrative appears to have been at least partially vindicated. The issue arose following the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports as a result of which the EU scrapped customs duties and quotas and allowed re-routed Ukrainian grain to pass through Poland and other East European countries on to African and Middle Eastern markets. However, much of this cheap grain ended up staying in Poland which, together with last year’s bumper harvest, caused farmers to make huge losses. As a consequence, the Law and Justice government temporarily prohibited imports of several agricultural products from Ukraine. All of this made rural voters – who will be crucial in autumn’s election, but as a demographic are wary of some of the Confederation’s free-market policies – more receptive to the party’s message that, in focusing on providing solidarity with Ukraine, Law and Justice failed to properly protect Polish farmers’ interests.
Out of step with its supporters?
The Confederation has also professionalised its image by consciously sidelining its most radical leaders, such as Mr Korwin-Mikke and the highly controversial political maverick Grzegorz Braun, both of whom are associated with pro-Russian rhetoric and other extreme positions. Last October, Mr Korwin-Mikke was replaced as leader of his eponymous ‘KORWiN’ party by the charismatic 35-year-old businessman Sławomir Mentzen who also re-branded and re-named the grouping ‘New Hope’ (Nowa Nadzieja). Together with Mr Bosak, Mr Mentzen now dominates the Confederation’s media profile communicating the party’s radical programme in a more measured and reasonable way.
Mr Mentzen is also the most effective utiliser of the Internet among Polish politicians. Ignored by the traditional broadcast and print media, the Confederation was forced to find its own political communication channels. Like a number of the party’s leaders, Mr Mentzen has, therefore, developed a strong on-line presence and built his profile through the social media, which is also its younger core electorate’s main source of political information, where he presents himself as a self-assured and authoritative financial expert and entrepreneur. Mr Mentzen was, for example, one of Poland’s first party leaders to be active on TikTok where he has 700,000 followers and his short videos receive millions of ‘likes’.
The Confederation’s opponents have tried to discredit the party among potential new supporters by arguing that its leadership’s strongly socially conservative views on moral-cultural issues such as abortion diverge from those of its social base of younger Poles. They note that, for example, in 2019 Mr Mentzen allegedly summed up the Confederation’s five-point policy programme as: ‘we don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the EU’ (known as the ‘Mentzen Five’). They also cite a website published by Mr Mentzen shortly before the last parliamentary election containing 100 draft laws that he wanted passed including: the creation (for those who wanted them) of ‘un-dissolvable’ marriages that could only be terminated with the consent of a bishop, the return of the death penalty, and 10-year prison sentences for any women who had an abortion.
However, Confederation politicians argue that the ‘Mentzen Five’ was an extract from a lengthier political marketing lecture cited out of context and simply presenting a theoretical example of what polling suggested the party’s voters wanted and not his own views. The ‘100 laws’ were, they say, a ‘pre-historic’ project most of which Mr Mentzen did not author or even remember. Moreover, although they have quite socially liberal views Confederation voters also often see the ‘cancel culture’ that they associate with the ‘woke’ left as a greater threat to their personal freedom than the religious right.
Post-election dilemmas
So what will happen if the Confederation ends up holding the balance of power in the next parliament? The party says that it does not want to enter a coalition with either Law and Justice or the other current opposition parties, which it attacks with equal vigour. Obviously, it cannot signal ahead of the election which of the two blocs it would be prepared to govern with because this would undermine the party’s appeal with its core anti-establishment electorate. For the same reason, even after the election it will be difficult for the party to maintain its radical insurgent ‘anti-system’ image if it ends up making the kind of compromises and deals that are required to participate in a governing coalition.
On the other hand, the Confederation’s leaders would prefer to have a real influence on government policy than simply being a repository of protest votes, perpetually in opposition. Most commentators expect the party to come to some kind of accommodation with Law and Justice, and suggest that its leaders are pragmatic and biddable so would be tempted to join a government if they could secure influence over ministries that are key to their programmatic priorities. However, it is difficult to envisage a party for whom reducing state intervention is a core element of its appeal being given a significant say on economic matters in a government led by Law and Justice which owes much of its recent political success to large social welfare programmes. Moreover, although the Confederation’s nationalist wing is nominally ideologically closer to the current ruling party, many of its leaders remember how their previous grouping, the now-defunct League of Polish Families (LPR), was marginalised and then eliminated when it was Law and Justice’s junior coalition partner in the 2005-7 parliament.
Indeed, the Confederation’s own long-term strategic goal is to replace Law and Justice as the dominant party on the Polish right. It is counting on a major shake-up after Law and Justice’s 73-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński stands down, most likely during the next parliament. Although he does not hold any formal government positions, Mr Kaczyński has provided a crucial source of cohesion within the governing camp, but the Confederation believes that his previously unquestioned authority and influence are steadily weakening. In that sense, it might be more advantageous for the party to wait out another term in opposition, particularly given that its leaders are still relatively young.
A more attractive scenario for the party may, therefore, be for it to prop up a minority government through an informal governing pact rather than a formal coalition. But Law and Justice may also try and persuade Confederation deputies (and those from other parties) to defect so that it can obtain the votes that it needs to secure a parliamentary majority without such a deal. The larger the Confederation’s parliamentary caucus the more likely it is that its deputies will have weak ideological underpinnings and peel away, especially if Law and Justice falls just a few seats short of a majority.
In fact, the Confederation’s voter base is quite ideologically diverse, exemplified by the fact that Mr Bosak’s voters in the 2020 presidential election divided evenly between the Law and Justice and Civic Platform candidates in the second round run-off. Indeed, in some ways it may be easier for the current opposition parties to accommodate the Confederation’s economic policy demands; although the party’s radical Eurosceptic stance on issues such as EU climate policy would be much more problematic, and such a governing arrangement would face bitter hostility from groupings such as the radical ‘Left Together’ (Lewica Razem) party.
Lasting trend or temporary blip?
The Confederation clearly has a realistic chance of becoming a member of, or propping up, the next Polish government. However, if the election campaign develops a polarising dynamic some of its new voters could return to the two big camps, while uncertainty as to whether voting for the party will lead to a change of government may also prevent potential voters from supporting it. Or the party may just be peaking too early and find it difficult to maintain its momentum in the election run-up, especially if its more controversial leaders slip through the media filter. The Confederation’s recent poll success may, therefore, simply turn out to be a temporary blip rather than a lasting trend.
Defending the former Pope’s legacy may only swing a relatively small number of voters, but in a closely fought election this could be decisive in helping the right-wing ruling party to secure another outright parliamentary majority.
Abuse cover-up claims and counterclaims
Last month, a documentary aired by the US-owned TVN24 news channel claimed to show evidence that Pope John Paul II was negligent in handling cases of alleged child sexual abuse by three priests under his authority while he was Archbishop Karol Wojtyła of the Kraków diocese in the 1960s and 1970s. The report suggested that the former pontiff allowed the culprits to continue working as priests and tried to conceal their actions by transferring them to other parishes. Similar allegations in the case of the two of the priests had already been made last December in a book by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek, published in Poland during the same week that the documentary was aired.
The report’s defenders argued that, although the Polish Catholic Church has kept the archives from the time sealed, the investigators drew upon a wide range of other evidence and sources. These included court records and interviews with the surviving victims, and apparent witnesses and acquaintances, of the pedophile priests who said that they informed the then-Archbishop Wojtyła about the crimes, together with their relatives and former employees of the Kraków diocese. The latest accusations came amid a broader debate about the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse that has shaken the Polish Church in recent years, with a number of high-ranking clergymen having been sanctioned by the Vatican, prompting some figures to call for a re-assessment of John Paul II’s legacy and record of dealing with this issue during his pontificate.
The Polish Church Episcopate acknowledged that further research was needed to establish an accurate assessment of John Paul II’s response to these cases of abuse, and suggested that some of its archives would be opened in the future. However, critics of the media investigations said that a number of their claims had already been refuted by other journalists. They pointed out that much of the evidence was taken from documents created by the former communist-era security services which, they argued, could not be accepted uncritically as a credible source because the communist regime was extremely hostile to, and keen to find any way to subvert and discredit, the Church.
The former Pope’s defenders accused the investigators of adopting a biased approach and ignoring or failing to properly appreciate the broader historical context of the facts that they uncovered. While his supporters acknowledged that the late pontiff made mistakes, they pointed out that, whereas there are now effective Church procedures to respond to sexual abuse, in the 1960s and 1970s there was a lack of proper understanding of the issue. They also said that the Polish Church felt under siege, knowing that the communist security services weaponised false denunciations against the clergy, which made it wary of openly discussing problematic issues, including those of a sexual nature.
A national hero and moral authority figure
Although, to some extent, the issue transcended the government-opposition divide, politicians from the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s ruling party since autumn 2015, vigorously condemned the accusations against John Paul II. The party located the latest media campaign within a broader civilisational context, arguing that the late Pope was the nation’s most important moral authority figure, and characterised attempts to discredit him as an anti-clerical left-wing plot to strike at the foundations of not just the Catholic faith but Polish national culture, tradition and identity. Law and Justice pushed through a parliamentary resolution defending John Paul II as a symbol of Poland regaining its independence from the Soviet communist sphere of influence, while party leaders took to the social media to defend the late pontiff’s good name and, during the debate, many of its deputies held up pictures of him.
In fact, although Law and Justice presents itself as a staunch defender of Christian values and enjoys a great deal of sympathy among the clergy, it also knows that most Poles, even praticising Catholics, have always been wary about the Church exerting too much political influence. So, fearful of putting off more ‘secular’ centrist votes, the party has been very cautious about adopting too high a ‘religious’ profile. Nonetheless, although Poland is steadily secularising – the CBOS polling agency found that the number who defined themselves as believers declined from 94% in March 1992 to 84% in June 2022, while those attending Mass at least once a week fell from 70% to 42% over the same period – it is still one of the most overwhelmingly Catholic countries in Europe. Moreover, the Church remains an important civil society actor especially in Law and Justice’s small-town and rural electoral heartlands where levels of religiosity are high.
At the same time, as perhaps the single most important and globally known figure in Poland’s twentieth century history, until very recently John Paul II was a symbolic (indeed, iconic) national hero for most Poles, even those who were not especially religious, and one of the few public figures recognised spontaneously as a relatively unquestioned moral authority who transcended social and political divides. This was not just for his charismatic presentation of Catholic Christianity, but also because of the pivotal role that the former Pope was felt to have played in liberating not only Poland but the whole of Eastern Europe from communism. John Paul II’s historic 1979 papal visit to Poland, when millions attended his open air Masses, is seen as a key factor in the rise of the Solidarity anti-communist opposition movement a year later. A May 2022 CBOS survey found that (although down from a peak of 95% in March 2015) 81% of Poles still considered him an important moral authority. The exception here were younger Poles, the demographic that has secularised most rapidly and grew up after his death in 2005, and to whom he is a more abstract figure (and sometimes object of subversive memes).
Indeed, a March poll conducted by the IBRiS agency for the ‘Rzeczpospolita’ newspaper found that only 16% of respondents said that the latest allegations had changed their attitude towards John Paul II for the worse, while 77% said that they had had no impact (4% said they changed them for the better). 51% felt that the critical media coverage was primarily an attack on the late pontiff’s memory while only 32% said it was an attempt to reveal the truth about his past. A survey by the same agency for the ‘Onet.pl’ online news platform found that only 27% felt the allegations undermined John Paul II’s reputation and moral authority, while 62% disagreed. 45% said that he had taken sufficient action as Pope, and earlier as Archbishop of Kraków, to tackle clerical sexual abuse while only 27% disagreed; although a relatively large number (29%) did not know.
The opposition splits three ways
The vote on Law and Justice’s parliamentary resolution also revealed a three-way split among the opposition parties. The agrarian-centrist Polish Peasant Party (PSL), which has a relatively socially conservative support base in small-towns and rural areas, joined the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) grouping voting in favour. On the other hand, almost all of the votes against came from the anti-clerical ‘Left’ (Lewica) grouping, some of whose leaders even called for the former Pope’s patronage to be removed from the monuments, statues, street names, town squares and schools that were named after him.
However, it was the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping, that found itself in the most difficult situation. The party’s residual, and increasingly marginalised, conservative wing has generally acquiesced in the leadership’s shift to a more socially liberal stance on moral-cultural issues such as abortion and state recognition of same-sex civil partnerships, reflecting the changing ideological profile of its increasingly secular electoral base. But being associated with a narrative that openly undermined John Paul II’s moral authority and legitimacy was much more difficult for Civic Platform conservatives and centrists to swallow, and, anyway, the party could not risk offending too many ‘religious’ voters if it hoped to win the up-coming autumn parliamentary election.
Not wanting to bring the party’s divisions out into the open, virtually all of Civic Platform’s deputies abstained in the parliamentary vote and accused Law and Justice of cynically dragging John Paul II into contemporary political disputes. However, most Poles expect their political leaders to take a clear and unambiguous stance on such a highly emotive and polarising issue. Civic Platform could end up alienating both centrists, who dislike Law and Justice but continue to see the former Pope as a national hero, and the anti-clerical voters who increasingly make up the party’s core electorate.
A political gift for Law and Justice?
So can this issue swing the parliamentary election in Law and Justice’s favour? The steady erosion of John Paul II’s moral legitimacy is, as noted above, partly a generational phenomenon and linked to a broader crisis of the Church’s societal authority, as well as fading memories of his impact on the transition to democracy. However, given the current state of public opinion on this issue, in the short-term it can only benefit Law and Justice and damage the liberal-centrist opposition. Civic Platform is certainly hoping that it will fade and other issues where Law and Justice is much more vulnerable, such as price increases and falling living standards, become the most electorally salient.
In fact, bread-and-butter socio-economic issues will almost certainly be the dominant ones in determining the election outcome. However, debate over John Paul II’s legacy will provide an additional dimension to the campaign, because for many Poles he is such an important societal authority figure and so tied up with national identity. Indeed, there have been suggestions that Law and Justice-backed President Andrzej Duda will call the election for October 15th, to coincide with ‘St Pope John Paul II Day’.
Defending John Paul II’s legacy is an effective rallying cry for Law and Justice because it is not just party’s core supporters who regard him as an important authority figure. In that sense, the issue is a gift for Law and Justice because it allows the party to portray itself as the defender of mainstream Polish values and convey a very clear and simple message that goes with the grain of public opinion: that it is the one true defender of John Paul II‘s ‘good name’ against those in the opposition and its supportive media who are undermining, or failing to effectively defend, one of the most important Poles in history. This could prompt some more conservative Poles who dislike Law and Justice to hold back from supporting the opposition, if not necessarily voting for the ruling party.
Mobilising core voters will be crucial
But, even more importantly, this is an issue that consolidates Law and Justice’s base. The autumn election will be extremely closely fought and a key factor determining the outcome will be which party can mobilise its supporters most effectively. According to the ‘Pooling the Poles’ micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys, Law and Justice is currently averaging 37% support, so only needs a small uptick to get to the 40% required to have a chance of securing another outright majority. The key to this will be winning back disillusioned ex-Law and Justice voters, who are currently more likely to abstain than support the opposition parties. Defending John Paul II’s legacy is an ideal way of mobilising precisely these voters, including some who would not otherwise have turned out to vote, particularly older ones in the party’s rural electoral heartlands where local priests are still hugely influential public figures. So even if it if only influences a relatively small number of voters, the issue could still have a decisive impact on the election outcome.
An amended judicial reform law was supposed to unblock Poland’s EU coronavirus recovery funds and help the right-wing ruling party regain the political initiative ahead of autumn’s crucial parliamentary poll. But a presidential referral for review has put the law’s fate in the hands of a fragmented and deeply divided constitutional tribunal, virtually ending any realistic prospect of Warsaw receiving the funds before the election.
The ongoing coronavirus funds dispute
The Polish government, led by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been in a long-running dispute with the EU political establishment over so-called ‘rule-of-law’ issues since it came to office in autumn 2015, particularly its judicial reforms. The EU institutions agreed with Poland’s legal establishment and most opposition parties that these reforms undermined judicial independence and threatened the constitutional separation of powers. Law and Justice’s supporters, on the other hand, argued that the reforms were justified because, following Poland’s flawed transition to democracy in 1989, the judiciary, like many key institutions, was expropriated by an extremely well-entrenched, and often deeply corrupt, post-communist elite. It accused the EU institutions of bias and double standards, acting illegitimately beyond their legal competencies, and using the ‘rule-of-law’ issue as a pretext to victimise Law and Justice because the party rejected the Union’s liberal-left consensus on moral-cultural issues.
As part of this dispute, the European Commission blocked the release of Poland’s 35 billion Euros share of the Union’s coronavirus post-pandemic recovery funds until Law and Justice implemented a July 2021 EU Court of Justice ruling that it disband a newly created supreme court disciplinary chamber for judges. Warsaw felt that it had satisfied this condition when, last July, the Polish parliament adopted a law proposed by Law and Justice-backed President Andrzej Duda replacing the disputed body with a new, apparently more impartial, professional responsibility chamber. However, the Commission said that did not go far enough in meeting its rule-of-law ‘milestones’ for un-freezing the funds, while Warsaw accused Brussels of moving the goalposts.
One of the main points of contention was that the Commission insisted that Polish judges should have the right to challenge their colleagues’ status or decisions without being subject to disciplinary action. The key issue at stake here was whether they could be disciplined for questioning the legitimacy of judges appointed by the newly constituted national judicial council (KRS), an important body that oversees the appointment and supervision of the Polish judiciary. The council was overhauled by Law and Justice so that elected politicians rather than the legal profession had the decisive influence in choosing its members, and the government’s critics argued that this meant it was under too much political influence. Law and Justice, on the other hand, argued that making judges and their supervisory organs more accountable to elected bodies was both justified, because the Polish judicial elite had operated as a ‘state within a state’ incapable of reforming itself, and in line with practices in other established Western democracies.
Although Law and Justice originally pledged not to engage in further negotiations with the Commission, last September it changed tack and indicated a willingness to be more flexible. The party’s leadership became increasingly nervous that if Poland failed to secure the recovery funds the country’s economic situation and credibility with the financial markets would worsen, public investment plans dry up and higher interest rates for government debt make state borrowing even more costly. It was also concerned that the dispute was creating uncertainty about the fate of the much larger 76.5 billion Euros of cohesion funding due to Poland from the 2021-2027 EU budget. Moreover, in spite of Law and Justice’s attempts to portray its domestic political opponents as working in collusion with Brussels on this issue, most Poles appeared to blame the governing camp rather than the Commission or opposition for the potential loss of EU funds. Law and Justice was particularly concerned that the freezing of these funds would become one of the opposition’s main attack lines in the upcoming autumn parliamentary election.
Mr Duda’s bombshell
As a consequence, last December the government announced a compromise agreement with the Commission which, Law and Justice hoped, would unblock the recovery funds if the Polish parliament approved a law further amending the judicial reforms. A key provision was transferring the disciplinary procedure for judges from the professional responsibility chamber, which the Commission still considered too politicised, to Poland’s supreme administrative court (NSA), a separate entity from the supreme court viewed as more independent because its staffing and functioning had not yet been questioned by any EU bodies. While opposition parties and some Polish legal experts argued that such a move was unconstitutional, the government was adamant about its legality.
Moreover, in a much more significant retreat for Law and Justice, the legislation also extended the scope of the so-called ‘test of judicial independence and impartiality’ of judges. This was a new procedure established by Mr Duda’s supreme court amendment law giving affected parties the ability to request that a court examine objections to a particular judge in their case, but which did not guarantee other judges the right to challenge the status of their colleagues. The new legislation would allow for the test to be initiated by the court itself, as well as ending disciplinary procedures against judges for formally questioning their colleagues’ status.
Last month, the Polish parliament passed the new law and, at one point, the recovery funds appeared to be within the government’s grasp. However, Law and Justice’s plan received a major, unexpected setback when Mr Duda referred the legislation to the constitutional tribunal for so-called ‘preventive control’; which means that it will not come into force until the tribunal rules on its constitutionality. Mr Duda had previously voiced misgivings about several aspects of the new legislation even before it was submitted to parliament. He was particularly concerned about the proposed changes to the system for testing judicial independence and impartiality which, by potentially questioning the legality of the President’s appointments, challenged his constitutional prerogative to nominate judges. Nonetheless, Law and Justice was hoping, and most commentators expecting, that Mr Duda would either simply approve the legislation or allow it to come into force while referring the clauses about which he had misgivings for constitutional review.
A fragmented and conflicted tribunal
Government critics argue that the tribunal is under the influence of Law and Justice which, they say, has turned it into a tool for rubber-stamping controversial government laws; something which the ruling party’s supporters deny or argue that its politicisiation predates the current administration. However, in recent weeks the tribunal has found itself embroiled in an internal dispute between supporters and opponents of its current president, Julia Przyłębska. At least six tribunal members argue that Mrs Przyłębska’s term of office as president expired last December and so the tribunal cannot review the judicial reform law until a successor is appointed. Mrs Przyłębska denies this and has received support from the government, arguing that she remains in office until 2024 when her term as a tribunal member ends, as the law specifying a six-year presidential term came into effect after her appointment.
But whereas other disputes within Poland’s judiciary have generally been between ‘new’ judges appointed since Law and Justice introduced its reforms and ‘old’ ones nominated under previous governments, the six justices calling for Mrs Przyłębska to leave are all post-2015 nominees. They are considered to be close to justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro who introduced many of the government’s most controversial reforms and leads the right-wing conservative ‘Solidaristic Poland’ (SP) party, Law and Justice’s junior coalition partner which voted against the amended judicial reform law in parliament. The problem is that at least eleven out of the tribunal’s fifteen members must be present for a quorum to make a judgement on this issue, so it is highly uncertain when it will be able to review the law. In other words, the constitutionality of one of the most important laws in the current parliament will be determined by a fragmented and conflicted body in the midst of a deep internal crisis.
In fact, the Polish opposition and legal establishment do not recognise the constitutional tribunal as a lawfully established body in its current form: arguing that three of its members were not appointed properly, and questioning the legal validity of Mrs Przyłębska’s original election as president in December 2016 (again, Law and Justice vigorously denies this). Moreover, last month the situation was further complicated when the Commission also expressed serious doubts about the tribunal’s independence and impartiality, and launched further EU Court proceedings charging it with undermining the Union’s legal order. These charges date back to two tribunal rulings issued in July and October 2021 that found parts of the EU treaties to be incompatible with – and, therefore, legally subordinate to – the Polish Constitution. However, even if Brussels chooses to treat this issue separately from the judicial disciplinary system dispute, the EU Court could still ‘freeze’ the tribunal as an interim measure. The Commission could then use this as a pretext to argue that the ‘milestones’ have not been fulfilled and further delay recovery fund payments even if the tribunal rules that the judicial reform law is constitutional.
A litmus test of government effectiveness
Securing the recovery funds has thus become a major litmus test of the Polish government’s broader effectiveness and could play a critical role in determining the election outcome. For sure, even if the legislation implementing the deal had been signed into law, the first tranche of payments were unlikely to have come on tap until the third or even fourth quarter of the year. Nonetheless, neutralising the ‘rule-of-law’ conflict with the EU political establishment and securing the release of these funds would have been a major political success for Law and Justice: under-cutting one of the most important opposition talking points and re-assuring potential investors and the financial markets, thereby stabilising the Polish currency, and further reducing inflation and the cost of government borrowing. This, in turn, would have provided Law and Justice with some fiscal headroom to boost social spending, and thereby shore up its support, in the election run-up. According to the ‘Pooling the Poles’ micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys, Law and Justice still has the highest vote share, averaging 36% support. Although this only translates into 207 (out of 460) seats in the Sejm, the more powerful lower chamber of parliament, the party would just need a small uptick to get to the 40% average required to have a chance of securing another outright majority.
Law and Justice’s best case scenario is now that: the conflicted tribunal members resolve their differences; the judicial reform law is reviewed quickly, emerges unscathed and is approved by the President; and then Brussels accepts that Poland has met the rule-of-law ‘milestones’. However, even a fast-tracked constitutional review is likely to take at least a couple of months, which would mean the law coming into force in late May or June, and then another 3-4 months would elapse before Poland actually received any payments. Procedural wrangling could drag the process out for months, and the government’s agreement with Brussels might unravel if the tribunal questions the law’s provisions, especially those relating to the judicial impartiality test.
For sure, the election may end up being determined by other issues and some commentators and politicians argue that the government has over-stated the funds’ significance. Moreover, the EU political establishment may be so determined to stop Law and Justice securing re-election that, even if the new law is approved, it could find another pretext to block the funds’ release. Nonetheless, by more-or-less ending any realistic prospects of them reaching Poland before the election, Mr Duda’s actions have undermined a key element of Law and Justice’s electoral strategy, and the opposition can once-again argue that the blame for any delay lies squarely with the governing camp.
If Poland’s upcoming election were held today, the right-wing ruling party would almost certainly lose its parliamentary majority. But with several factors working in its favour, the governing party only needs a relatively small uptick in support to be within striking distance of a record third consecutive term of office.
On the back foot
This year, Polish politics will be dominated by the forthcoming parliamentary election, scheduled for the autumn. The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, Poland’s governing party since 2015, has been on the back foot for most of the last three-and-a-half years. Its initial slump in support was due in large part to a backlash against the hugely controversial October 2020 ruling by Poland’s constitutional tribunal that further tightened Poland’s already restrictive abortion law by invalidating a provision that allowed termination of pregnancy in cases where the foetus was seriously malformed or suffered from an incurable disorder. Given that the vast majority of legal abortions carried out in Poland were in such cases, the ruling effectively meant a near-total ban.
Although Law and Justice said that the ruling was a sovereign decision by an independent body and clearly in line with the tribunal’s earlier judgements on the issue in the mid-1990s (when it was dominated by justices who later became harsh critics of the current administration), the government’s opponents argued that it was under the ruling party’s control. The judgement set off a nationwide wave of street protests, particularly involving younger Poles, and played into the opposition’s narrative that Law and Justice was increasingly dominated by ‘religious right’ ideological extremists. Although it is a socially conservative party that draws inspiration from Catholic moral teaching, Law and Justice’s electorate includes many Poles with more liberal views on moral-cultural issues who support the party largely as a result of its socio-economic policies.
The ruling 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. It also coincided with a sense that the government was not coping effectively with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic; earlier in the year, ministers had re-assured Poles that the crisis was fully under control. Consequently, opinion poll support for Law and Justice fell sharply from around 40% in September to the low-to-mid 30s by November.
Law and Justice attempted to regain the political initiative last winter through its ‘Polish Deal’ (Polski Ład) programme designed to boost economic growth and living standards through a wide range of policies including tax reforms favouring the less well-off. However, the programme’s complexity and disastrous roll-out in January 2022 left even financial experts struggling to understand it. In February 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine gave Law and Justice an opportunity to draw a line under the ‘Polish Deal’ fiasco. But the ‘rally effect’ of the war – the inevitable psychological tendency for worried citizens to unite around their political leaders and institutions as the embodiment of national unity when they feel that their country faces an external threat – did not transform the party’s poll ratings. Although the war moved national security to the top of the political agenda, it did not really emerge as an issue of contestation between the parties who competed largely on which of them was the most effective at countering Russia and providing support for Ukraine.
An accumulation of crises
However, together with the economic fall-out from the pandemic crisis, the war exerted considerable extra pressure on the government through its impact on much more politically salient socio-economic issues. Inflation increased steadily from the beginning of 2022, particularly the price of food and household goods, peaking at 17.9% last October, its highest level for more than 25 years. Cost of living increases also eroded the value of the huge welfare payments that were the key to Law and Justice’s appeal to those voters who were not part of its core electorate but supported it as the political grouping offering the most generous support to the less well-off. Sanctions against Russia and disruption of supply chains also led to substantial fuel price increases and concerns about energy security. At the same time, interest rate rises exacerbated the economic slowdown, while fiscal tightening and the increased cost of government borrowing limited Law and Justice’s scope for further social spending.
Moreover, Law and Justice remained in a bitter ‘rule-of-law’ dispute with the EU political establishment over its judicial reform programme and the European Commission blocked the disbursement of Poland’s 35 billion Euros share of the Union’s coronavirus recovery funds. At the same time, ongoing internal divisions and infighting, notably between the more technocratic and pragmatic prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, weakened the governing camp. Mr Ziobro is leader of the right-wing conservative ‘Solidaristic Poland’ (SP) party, Law and Justice’s junior governing partner which has enough deputies to deprive the government of its parliamentary majority. Mr Ziobro, who has introduced many of the government’s most controversial policies including the judicial reforms, staked out a series of hardline right-wing conservative policy positions and criticised Mr Morawiecki for being excessively compromising and ideologically timid, specifically for making too many concessions to the EU political establishment.
While no single crisis was a political game changer, their cumulative effect was to erode support for the ruling party which struggled to win back the 5-10% of the electorate that it lost at the end of 2020. Indeed, no opinion poll for months has given Law and Justice hope of winning enough seats to retain its outright parliamentary majority. For example, according to the ‘Pooling the Poles’ micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys while Law and Justice still has the highest vote share, averaging 36% support, this only translates into 203 (out of 460) seats in the Sejm, the more powerful lower chamber of parliament. Currently Law and Justice’s only plausible possible coalition partner is the radical right ‘Confederation’ (Konfederacja) grouping, ‘Pooling the Poles’ has it averaging 7% and winning 25 Sejm seats, which would still leave the ruling party short of a parliamentary majority. Moreover, the Confederation’s strategic objective is to replace Law and Justice as the main political force on the Polish right not to keep it in office.
Everything still to play for
However, Law and Justice’s support has not collapsed and it would only need a small uptick to get it back to the 40% average that the party needs to have a chance of securing another outright majority and record third term of office for the post-communist era. Indeed, even if Law and Justice falls slightly short, there is a reasonable chance that it could win over some individual defectors from other political groupings. In one sense, it is striking that, in spite of such huge problems, Law and Justice has been able to maintain relatively high levels of support and get through the winter with none of these crises reaching a critical stage. Inflation appears to have more-or-less peaked (for the moment at least) and, although energy costs remain high, there were no winter fuel shortages as initially feared. Unemployment remains low so many Poles feel they can at least partially offset inflation with pay increases, and although growth will slow down considerably this year the Polish economy is very unlikely go into actual recession.
Law and Justice knows that whether or not the government can unblock Poland’s share of the coronavirus recovery funds will be a critical litmus test of its broader effectiveness. But if the legislation implementing a deal which the government agreed with the Commission last December is approved by parliament and signed into law, and the recovery funds released, this would be a major political success for Law and Justice. For sure, even in a best-case scenario the first tranche of recovery fund monies are unlikely to come on tap until the third or even fourth quarter of the year. Nonetheless, not only would their unblocking under-cut one of the opposition’s most important talking points, it could also re-assure potential investors and the financial markets, thereby stabilising the Polish currency, and further reducing inflation and the cost of government borrowing. This would, in turn, provide Law and Justice with some fiscal headroom to boost social spending, and thereby shore up its support, in the election run-up.
Moreover, the Polish government’s active engagement as one of the main hubs for channeling military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and prime destination for refugees fleeing the conflict, have boosted the country’s international standing. Law and Justice is ramping up Polish defence spending, already one of the highest levels in NATO, to 4% of GDP and doubling the number of troops to 300,000, making Poland pivotal to the Alliance’s security relationship with Russia. So if, depending upon the course of the war, military security becomes more of an election issue, Law and Justice could benefit from a further ‘rally effect’, which could then spill over into other policy areas.
Law and Justice is also helped by the relative weakness of the opposition. Bitter divisions over how to respond to the legislation modifying Law and Justice’s judicial reforms that emerged from the government’s negotiations with the Commission, further divided an opposition already fragmented between four liberal, centrist, left-wing and agrarian parties. Former European Council President and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk – who leads the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping – is certainly a very articulate and effective critic of Law and Justice and his blistering critiques have rallied the core anti-government electorate. According to ‘Pooling the Poles’, Civic Platform is currently averaging around 30% support. But Mr Tusk is also one of Poland’s most distrusted politicians and a very polarising figure with loyal devotees but also fierce opponents, so may actually end up mobilising Law and Justice supporters. Crucially, the opposition has not yet convinced voters that it has a credible and attractive programmatic alternative, particularly on the socio-economic issues that are likely to be the main battleground on which the election will be fought. The very negative anti-Law and Justice messaging on which the opposition appears to have based its electoral strategy is unlikely, on its own, to have sufficient mobilising appeal.
Indeed, Polish public opinion is highly polarised and there is little evidence of any significant transfers between the government and opposition camps. Rather, it seems that the fall in support for Law and Justice was largely accounted for by the de-mobilisation of some of its erstwhile supporters, particularly those attracted to the party by its social and economic policies rather than for ideological reasons. Many of these voters are now planning to abstain rather than switch to the opposition, which obviously it easier for Law and Justice to win them back.
The election outcome remains uncertain
Law and Justice’s base of support has been eroded as it faced continued economic turbulence, a protracted war on its border, a resulting energy crisis, an ongoing dispute over EU funds, and infighting within the governing camp. Opinion polls suggest, that if an election were held today, it would almost certainly lose its parliamentary majority and the opposition parties could cobble together a government, albeit a rather shaky one. But the election will be held in ten months’ time, not today. The winter crises have not spiraled out of control, inflation is slowing down, unemployment remains low, and while the economy is weakening it is unlikely to go into recession. The possible unblocking of EU coronavirus funds would provide fiscal headroom for further social spending, the ongoing war in Ukraine could create a further ‘rally effect’ around the incumbent, and the opposition remains unable to win over disillusioned ex-Law and Justice voters. With all these factors potentially working in Law and Justice’s favour, the election outcome is likely to remain uncertain right up until polling day.
The Polish Politics Blog 