Donald Tusk has called on Poland’s president to allow for the speedy formation of a new government, as the country waits to see how quickly a coalition of opposition forces can take office.
Sunday’s parliamentary election gave the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has ruled Poland for the past eight years, the most votes but no viable path to a parliamentary majority.
The final count, announced on Tuesday, showed PiS had received 35.4% of the vote while Civic Coalition, led by Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, had 30.7%. Together with the centre-right Third Way on 14.4% and the leftwing Lewica on 8.6%, Civic Coalition should be able to put together an alliance that would form a comfortable majority in the 460-seat parliament.
Tusk claimed victory within minutes of the polls closing on Sunday evening, and on Tuesday he called on the president, Andrzej Duda, to get on with the process of allowing the coalition to form a government.
“I am making a passionate appeal to the president, people are waiting for the first decisions, so we are asking the president for energetic and quick decisions,” Tusk said. “The winning democratic parties are in constant contact and are ready to take over responsibility for government in the country at any time.”
With the results formalised, Duda’s role is to indicate his preference for which party should get the first chance to put together a coalition. Tradition indicates he will turn to PiS, as the largest party, but all other parties have indicated they will not work with PiS, meaning the current government has no route to a coalition.
Even PiS party figures, having earlier suggested they planned to try to find a coalition, appear to have admitted defeat. “Evil has prevailed in Poland, temporarily,” Marek Suski, a senior PiS official, told the public broadcaster TVP. “PiS is likely moving into a really democratic opposition.”
Małgorzata Paprocka, of Duda’s office, said on Tuesday that the situation was “complicated and requires consideration and analysis by the president”, adding that Duda “does not rule out any option”.
The opposition coalition spans across a broad swathe of the Polish political spectrum, but Szymon Hołownia, the leader of Third Way, said he did not foresee problems with putting together a coalition government
“We will reach an agreement because we are aware that history has happened before our eyes. I do not expect any major problems with assembling the government and its programme,” he said.
The result has prompted celebration from progressive Poles about the end of PiS rule, which has eroded the rule of law, rolled back abortion rights and targeted minorities and non-European migrants with hateful propaganda.
However, there remains a lingering fear of possible PiS gambits in the coming days and weeks. Caution also stems from the realisation that governing with a PiS-aligned president in office until 2025, and with numerous state institutions packed with PiS supporters, will not be easy.
Still, after a series of polls in the run-up to the vote suggested the knife-edge election could result in political deadlock, the clear victory has delighted many. In the first-past-the-post ballot for the upper house of parliament, the three opposition groups cooperated to field single candidates against PiS in each district, and took 66 out of 100 seats.
The victory is all the more remarkable given that the electoral playing field was hardly level. A preliminary monitoring report from the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe released on Monday found that PiS “enjoyed clear advantage through its undue influence over the use of state resources and the public media”.
The record turnout, at 74.3%, was 13% higher than for the parliamentary election four years ago and appears to have been a factor in the opposition’s victory. A particularly high voting rate among young people translated into more support for various anti-PiS parties.
In the capital, Warsaw, turnout was an extraordinary 84.9%. “You have shown the enormous power of civil society. I am proud! Thank you!” Rafał Trzaskowski, the Civic Coalition mayor of Warsaw, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Another factor in the result was the decision not to unite opposition forces and run as a single anti-PiS list. In the end, giving people who wanted to vote against PiS but not for Tusk different options proved a wise strategy. While Lewica will be a little disappointed with its 8.6%, the 14.4% for Third Way, coming on the heels of a very strong performance in the only televised debate by its leader Hołownia, appears to have maximised the anti-PiS vote.
The choice of democratic opposition parties also probably contributed to the dismal showing by Confederation, the far-right, anti-system party that had been polling well into double digits over the summer but in the end got 7.2%
Still, the breadth of the proposed new coalition may cause issues once PiS is out of office. Already on Tuesday, another Third Way leader, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said he would not guarantee supporting liberalising the law to allow for abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, one of Tusk’s campaign promises. “No ideological issues can be part of any coalition agreement,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
