Index / Politics / Poland / The opposition around Donald Tusk wins the 2023 Polish parliamentary election

The opposition around Donald Tusk wins the 2023 Polish parliamentary election

Oct 18, 2023 at 10:38 1016

The opposition around the former Polish prime minister and former European Council president Donald Tusk (*1957) is the winner of the October 15, 2023 Polish parliamentary election. Roughly 29.5 million voters in Poland where asked to cast their ballot. Voter turnout was a record high 74.4% (+12.7 in comparison with 2019), the highest participation since the fall of communism in 1989.

The 2023 Polish parliamentary election results

The leader of the ruling PiS party, Jarosław Kaczyński (*1949), and his United Right coalition come in first with 35.4% of the vote (-8.2 in comparison with 2019), but they lost 41 seats in the Lower House (Sejm), where they end up with 194 seats. Therefore, in the 460-member Sejm, the PiS lost their majority. Their only possible coalition partner, the far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence party ended up with 7.2% (+0.4) and 18 seats (+7). Together, the PiS and the Confederation only control 212 seats in the Sejm, far short of the minimum majority of 231 seats required.

Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) and his Civic Coalition come in second with 30.7% of the vote (+3.3) and new 157 seats (+23). The agrarian Polish People’s Party PSL and their Third Way alliance (Trzecia Droga, TD) ended up third with 14.4% (+5.8) and 65 seats (+35!).

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński made the fatal error during the campaign to insult PSL voters; the German translation of the Polish wording was «Banausen und Faulpelze», according to the German public TV channel ZDF. In short, it is unlikely that the PSL will form a coalition with the ousted PiS.

The fourth largest party in the 2023 Polish parliamentary election is the New Left (Nowa Lewica), which participated in an electoral coalition called Left Together (Lewica Razem). They won 8.6% (-4). They lost 23 seats in comparison with 2019, but still managed to win 26 seats in the Lower House.

The Civic Coalition of Donald Tusk, the Third Way and The Left coalitions control together 248 seats in the Sejm, way above the 231 needed for an absolute majority. They will most likely form a pro-European coalition government together.

In the less important 2023 Polish Senate election, the opposition also won a majority. Donald Tusk’s PO, together with the Third Way, the Left ad some independente candidates, control 66 seats in the 100-member Senate. The remaining 34 seats were won by Jarosław Kaczyński’s PiS.

Since the 2023 Polish parliamentary election was ugly, let’s add here a dirty joke. PiS is pronounced “piss”. A majority of Polish voters just told PiS leader Kaczyński and his prime minister and government to “PiSs off”.

The 100-member Senat is elected through a first-past-the-post system in 100 single-mandate constituencies. The 460 members of the more important Lower House called Sejm are elected through a proportional open list system from 41 multi-member constituencies. Parties must win at least five per cent of valid votes nationwide to enter the Sejm, electoral coalitions need even eight percent. Electoral lists registered by national minorities are exempt from threshold requirements.

As you could read above, with 8.6%, Left Together (Lewica Razem) just made it over that threshold. In short, the win by the opposition was narrow.

As for dirty tricks, to mobilize its voters on election day, the PiS organized a simultaneous referendum with four biased questions, e.g. question 1: Do you support the selling off of state assets to foreign entities, leading to the loss of Poles’ control over strategic sectors of the economy? Or question 4: Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in accordance with the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?

Voter participation for the largely boycotted referendum was only 40.9% in comparison with over 74.4% for the legislative election.

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The PiS government, for instance with unfair methods, has partly eroded democracy in Poland

Over eight years, under the guidance of the surviving evil twin — Jarosław Kaczyński’s twin brother was killed in a tragic plane crash, for which the survivor holds Russia responsible, although there is no proof —, the PiS government eroded democracy in Poland.

Overall, the media landscape in Poland is still pluralistic and diverse, although polarized. But the PiS has managed to instrumentalize public media, notably public television which airs biased, distorted news in favor of the ruling party. The government and its agencies financially favored friendly newspapers, magazines, TV channels through paid ads published and broadcast in those news outlets, while harrassing critical media through lawsuits.

Jarosław Kaczyński, the chairman of Poland’s ruling party and deputy prime minister, said in August 2023 that his rival from the Civic Platform (PO), Donald Tusk, is “the personification of pure evil”. He added: “Someone here among the audience said that traitors should be exterminated. Yes, they must be morally exterminated.”

In its preliminary findings and conclusions report about the 2023 Polish parliamentary election published on election day, October 15, the OSCE wrote among many other things: «Freedoms of association and assembly were respected, and contestants were able to campaign freely. However, while the campaign was pluralistic it was marked by the misuse of administrative resourcesand an uneven playing field. There was a notable overlap between the ruling party’s campaign messages and information campaigns of the government as well as state-controlled companies and their foundations, including on the referendum organized upon the government’s initiative. This provided asignificant advantage to the ruling coalition, blurring the line between state and party in contravention with OSCE commitments and other international standards.»

Jarosław Kaczyński has repeatedly accused Donald Tusk of implementing “a plan that is not Polish, but [one] of the Brussels bureaucracy”. He accused the PO and its leader to be Germany’s and the EU’s poodle, to be a foreign stooge on a path to destroy Poland and its independence.

The PiS record after eight years in power

In absolute numbers, Poland has by far welcomed more Ukrainians than any other country. Some five million Ukrainians live and work in Poland, not necessarily as refugees. In addition to millions already working and studying in Poland, the country welcomed additional millions after Putin’s escalation of the war against Ukraine in February 2022.

However, PiS has taken a hard stance on migrants and refugees from other countries. Therefore, it was embarrassing for the PiS government when, in March 2023, Polish prosecutors launched an investigation into possible corruption connected to issuing possibly hundreds of thousands Polish Schengen area working visas for foreign workers from Africa and Asia by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), resulting in the dismissal of a deputy foreign minister and charges against seven individuals. Ylva Julia Margareta Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, asked the Polish government to clarify the situation.

Furthermore, in September 2023 president Duda compared Ukraine to a “drowning person” while prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced to halt weapons deliveries to Kyiv amid a spat over Ukrainian grain exports to Poland, which angered Polish farmers. All of this had to do with the 2023 parliamentary election and the sensibilities of some potential PiS voters.

Several attempts by the government and the PiS to drag the army into the election campaign angered General Rajmund Andrzejczak, the chief of the general staff, and the operational commander, Lt General Tomasz Piotrowski, who both submitted their resignations (together with some other officers) just five days before the election because they had lost confidence into the political leadership.

Poland’s economic rise took largely place before the PiS came to power. Jarosław Kaczyński and his party notably introduced generous child benefits, which helped to lift out of poverty many (often rural) families with several children.

The PiS agenda may be family friendly, but it is also nationalistic, xenophobic, homophobic, populist, authoritarian and anti-EU. The irony is that, at the end of the communist era, Poland was one of Europe’s poorest countries, which was lifted out of poverty thanks to courageous economic reforms (notably by Leszek Balcerowicz) in combination with its EU membership. The PiS has started to undo some economic freedoms which had allowed Poland’s economic rise. The opposition leader Donald Tusk stands for economic liberalism.

The PiS government has introduced radical abortion restrictions, which have alienated many women. During the election campaign, Donald Tusk has made clear that he would relax the draconian abortion laws.

It won’t be easy to undo the shady judicial and other changes introduced by the PiS government

The Polish President Andrzej Duda is a PiS ally. In 2020, his presidential campaign focused against a so-called “LGBT ideology”, which he called more dangerous than communism.

PiS stands for Law and Justice. In reality, Jarosław Kaczyński and his party pushed through authoritarian changes to the constitution and the justice system, heavily critcized by the European Union. After Brussels withheld some EU funds, the PiS and President Duda slightly changed some of the reforms. Nevertheless, PiS has partly undermined the Rule of Law in Poland.

The three opposition coalitions who could now form a government together do not control a two-third majority in the Sejm to override the president’s possible veto on all kind of subjects as well as to undo some consitutional changes.

On the positive side, let’s note that EU leaders have already made signs that EU funds for Poland could be freed under a new Polish government respecting again EU laws, agreements and decisions.

President Duda will probably first offer the largest party PiS the chance to form a new government. It is unlikely that they will find a coalition partner. Only afterwards, the chance of the 2023 parliamentary election winner Donald Tusk will come.