Poland returns to Democracy

 

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                                               Donald Tusk and Szymon Holownia 

 Finally, on October 15^th, with a high turnout of 74.4%, the Polish electorate decisively rejected the authoritarian Law and Justice stranglehold on Polish democracy which had dominated Polish politics since 2015. In the main cities the vote, which surpassed even the election turnout of 1989 that ended Communist rule, resembled a massive carnival, particularly of the younger voters, as whole families turned up with their children to vote and mark what appeared to them to be a day of liberation. The actual turn out in Warsaw, the capital, was 84.92%.

It had nevertheless been an uphill task, as the United Right ruling coalition, of which Law and Justice Party (PiS) was the essential element, had the genuine support of the less affluent members of society, especially in the conservative countryside, whom they could keep on side with generous subsidies and increased pensions. Also, they had stacked the cards with monopolizing state television and the local press, which they used systematically to mock and denigrate the Polish opposition parties and the independent minded cultural elites. Any diplomatic or economic setback was shamelessly blamed on the main opposition leader Donald Tusk, whom they vilified as simultaneously a Russian and German stooge. During the election they circulated government propaganda by issuing four tendentious referendum questions which accompanied the ballot paper. Despite all this, and despite the sustained loyalty of the PiS core vote exceeding 35% of the electorate, the remaining 65% went to parties and coalitions determined to deny a return to power for PiS and its truculent leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The main opposition party, the Civic Coalition, led by Donald Tusk, gained 30.7%, while its two potential coalition partners in a future government, the centre right Third Way and the Left coalition, gained 14.4% and 8.6% respectively of the vote. That gave them a joint 248 seats in parliament against the 194 seats allocated by the vote to PiS. The far-right Confederation coalition gained 18 seats. Similarly, in the Senate the united opposition, organized this time into one electoral bloc, won 66 seats to the 34 that went to PiS. As for the biased referendum, less than 50% of the electorate participated by refusing to pick up the relevant voting slip at the polling booth, so its results were invalidated.

Despite this clear opposition victory, the PiS government is in no hurry to relinquish power. The state television is still in their hands, claiming that PiS has won the election because it has the largest vote, and still churning out its hate propaganda against the opposition. Its journalists remain defiant as, in case of being fired, they are counting on getting jobs in the new right-wing media empire promised by Kaczynski.  The state bank will continue to be headed by the highly politicized PiS nominee, Adam Glapinski, until 2028. Also, the state enterprises which dominate the Polish economic landscape, the Constitutional Court and other legal bodies, and above all the Presidency, remain in the hands of PiS nominees and still follow Kaczynski’s diktat. So does the present prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki who appears to have no intention of resigning. The President has already stated that the Lower House and the Senate will not meet until early November, and even then, he is likely to give Morawiecki several weeks to try and forge a governing coalition, even if such a mission has no chance of success. That is because, even if the Confederacy changed its mind and was bribed into supporting PiS, the right would still be 36 seats short of a working majority in the Lower House.

Under the Constitution, President Andrzej Duda has to summon parliament within 30 days of an election. He could do it in less time bearing in mind that the mathematics of the election result are clear. Opposition  spokesmen claim he is under pressure from PiS to delay the loss of power and to facilitate finding time for its politicians to destroy compromising documentation. He has promised to speak this week to representatives of each electoral list of candidates separately. Initially he will seek to winnow out support from wavering opposition groups to join in a coalition with PiS, but this is unlikely to succeed. The three opposition parties are due to issue a clear joint statement of intent on Tuesday declaring their readiness to form a government headed by Donald Tusk.

The current timetable following the opening of parliament would begin with the election of speakers for both chambers of parliament and be able to elect parliamentary committees dominated by the three democratic opposition parties. These could include commissions to investigate evidence of corruption and breaches of the constitution by the previous government. The President would not have the power to stop them. There would probably be a last-minute attempt by Morawiecki to seek support in the lower house for a PiS minority government, but judging by the current mood this will fail. Ultimately President Duda will eventually be forced by constitutional convention to invite Donald Tusk to form a government. This process could well be delayed until the end of November.

In all that time PiS will still be using TVP state television as a crude method of propaganda, the nomination of rogue judges by the President would continue, and the army and police would remain under the political control of the current ruling party, while the current fanatical Justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, who is the initiator of a politically controlled judiciary, remains in charge of the prosecutor’s office. Eventually Ziobro could be replaced by the new government, but any attempts to bring the judiciary in line with EU standards, or to reform the media, could be vetoed by President Duda, who remains in office until 2025. 

Following the election results the Polish zloty strengthened considerably, and Poland’s stock market recorded its strongest post-election opening since it was created. However, there are serious economic problems which the new government inherits. Some of this stems from the government support for businesses during the pandemic, but the problems have been augmented deliberately by lowering state enterprise prices for fuel, dishing out generous social benefits, lowering the pension age and increasing the defence budget, despite inflation remaining at 9.5%, and while there is negative growth in the GDP and a rising public sector debt. Much of the current spending is currently channelled through extrabudgetary funds, which it will be difficult to recover, as these funds are all run by PiS nominees, many of whom are relatives or partners of PiS deputies. Admittedly, there is a total of €60bn of EU funding, including €35bn from the European post-covid Recovery Fund, waiting in the wings for a future Polish finance minister to claim and distribute, but access to it will be blocked until judicial and media reforms are concluded, and these too could well be blocked initially by presidential veto. The opposition parties do not have the required 3/5 majority in the Lower House to overcome these vetoes.

There could be similar difficulties from the President in changing the school programme to drop the  nationalist and compulsory religious curriculums and to reintroduce sex education. It will take considerable effort to introduce a more liberal law on abortion and to recognize same sex marriage. President Duda and the hard core PiS opposition would still be appealing to the more conservative rural electorate to challenge social reforms were they to be excessively radical. In any case there will also be a broad spectrum of views on social and economic reforms within the three parties in the coming coalition. Some opposition leaders have sounded more optimistic about the future, like the new Warsaw Senator, Adam Bodnar, as they count on the President eventually succumbing to public pressure over the loss of EU funding and consideration of his own future. Others hint he could face possible impeachment for breaches of the Polish Constitution during his presidency. The  road to a more liberal and democratic Poland remains pockmarked with many obstacles.

However, whatever these obstacles, the direction of travel is clear. The new government’s goal will be a more liberal and secular political system respecting minority rights and an independent judiciary, that would bring Poland back into the mainstream of progressive and constructive members of the European Union. Also, its commitment to NATO and to supporting Ukraine in its struggle with the Russian invasion is likely to be reaffirmed.  This election is a turning point not only for Poland, but for the whole of Europe, as a successful attempt has been made in the sixth largest European economy to challenge the current trend towards illiberal politics in Europe, and to keep Europe united in facing the Russian challenge.

Wiktor Moszczynski

Poland - Putin’s Unwitting European Ally?

 

The pivotal parliamentary elections in Poland on October 15^th could be a watershed, not just for that country, but for the whole European project. In the first place, however, it is a wake-up call for Poland’s more progressive traditional political and cultural elites who had been in the forefront of the struggle for freedom during Communist rule and have had a strong pro-European pro-Western world picture going back a thousand years, ever since Poland accepted Christianity from Rome, rather than from Byzantium. They face a more authoritarian, nationalist, and Catholic narrative presented by the present government, and force fed to the people by the robust message from a virtual government monopoly on state television, and a bully pulpit in the churches. Will the Polish electorate, and, in particular, its rural and provincial element, stay loyal to the government and shy away from Poland’s earlier Western orientation. The ruling United Right Coalition leadership, headed by the Law and Justice party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczyński, sees the country as consisting of a breed of good Poles, who are nationalistic, family orientated and Catholic, and a breed of “worse” Poles, liberal, atheist, post-Communist, which have to be kept out of power by all means possible. So, any measure that helps the right retain power is good. After all, were they to lose power, many would face charges of corruption or breaching the constitution. That includes a subservient judiciary, retaliatory measures against the remaining independent media, an economic policy based on crude handouts, such as the original 500plus (which initially stimulated the economy and then helped stagnate it), pre-election reductions in state-controlled motorway tolls, petrol prices, train tickets in a period of high 9.5% inflation, higher pension and a constant anti-European, anti-immigrant, ecosceptic buzz in the state media.

Kaczynski is acutely attuned to the prejudices and fears of poorer families which he can play unchallenged, dressing up the resulting campaign in patriotic national colours. He has a rock solid 30% to 35% electoral support which gives him the key to power, while the opposition parties remain disunited with smaller parties in danger of not crossing the minimum threshold to win parliamentary seats.

At the European level, it is the threat of another illiberal Central European government maintaining its hold on power and, in tandem with Hungary, working to challenge and eventually undermine the European Union, over its immigration policy, which increasingly haunts the EU. Poland has made clear that, unlike the British Brexiteers, it does not want to leave the EU, but intends to undermine and change it from within. The current Polish prime minster Morawiecki has talked of his mission to “rechristianize Europe”. This is made worse for the EU because of the relative size of Poland which makes it the fifth largest in the EU in population, and  sixth in the size of its economy. On the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Poland was seen, and even admired, as Ukraine’s greatest friend in Europe, absorbing more that 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees. It has increased its defence budget dramatically and boasted that it wants to double the size of its army in the next two years. Poland has been in the forefront of the European frontier states pressing on their Western colleagues to ensure military and political support for Ukraine and a promise of EU membership when the war is over.  They have supported the controversial slogan of Ukraine joining NATO, which is such a provocative challenge to the Russian Federation.

This stand reflected the country’s mood and had the support of all the opposition parties with the exception of the extreme right-wing Confederation movement. In fact, the Polish government built no camps to shelter the refugees. They did not need to, as Polish families, Polish institutions, and schools, and churches, offered that hospitality spontaneously. It was only after a few weeks that the government got round to offering benefits to Polish families accepting refugees. Poland was the only country to keep an Ambassador in place in Kyiv from the first day of the invasion. President Duda, normally a political cipher for the United Right government (called the “fountain pen”, as signing dubious government legislation was his regular routine),  was admired in Poland for the political support he offered Ukraine in NATO capitals, for admonishing the German government for its slow response, and for regularly visiting Ukraine.

So why was it that in September Poland was at the forefront of blocking Ukrainian grain exports and then declaring that they were sending no more arms to Ukraine? Why did President Duda accuse his “friend” Zelensky, President of wartime Ukraine of “drowning and clutching at straws”? Why did this elicit joy in Moscow as the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gloated over “a split between Poland and Ukraine that will only grow”? Had the Polish government really chosen to reverse its long-established alliance with an independent Ukraine, which had been a constant factor in Poland’s foreign policy since 1991, when Poland and Ukraine first became independent?

The answer was that this was not a reverse in policy, merely another twist and turn in Poland’s turbulent internal struggle to retain power in the pre-election months. To the current Polish government foreign policy is merely an instrument in the government’s battle for survival. In fact, Kaczynski and the initial party leadership did not know any foreign languages and were completely oblivious to public opinion abroad. The only Western leader they could identify with was Donald Trump and they were among the last to recognize the last U.S. election results. They have consistently challenged EU directives and European Court of Justice rulings, and have kept up a negative campaign in their media against opposition leaders who share the EU’s liberal values. They have maintained a consistent negative campaign against Germany, whom they treat with almost the same hostility as Russia, equating the EU’s challenge to Poland’s judicial reforms with Germany’s bid to dominate Europe and subjugate Poland’s sovereignty. They also equate the opposition leaders, and particularly former EU statesman Donald Tusk, with being German agents. In order to embarrass the opposition, they dug deep into Poland’s wartime trauma of German occupation, to present Germany with a £1.2tn bill for war reparations. This negated Poland’s earlier agreed settlement of war claims. The government hoped that the opposition could be manoeuvred into appearing unpatriotic by opposing the claim. (It didn’t.) In doing so it completely ignored the German reaction and its impact on the growing strength of Germany’s right-wing opposition.

This issue with Ukraine had blown up suddenly after a Polish state enterprise foolishly chose to buy in cheap Ukrainian grain being shipped through Poland for third world destinations. Once this grain flooded the markets in Poland, Polish farmers had been sufficiently aggrieved to demand that these cheap grain shipments stop, in order to protect Poland’s native agricultural produce. Initially, the EU, which is responsible for all trade policies in Europe, put on a temporary ban, but after a few weeks the ban was lifted. The Polish government proudly followed its regular game of “patriotically” defying EU rulings and continued the ban along with Hungary and Slovakia. When Ukraine complained and threatened to appeal to the World Trade Organization, Poland retaliated with a torrent of verbal accusations of Ukrainian ingratitude, a statement by Morawiecki that Poland will stop providing weapons to Ukraine, and would now “re-arm itself” and not Ukraine, and that benefits to families helping refugees should be withdrawn. The fact that such language from a hitherto firm ally would please Russia, upset Ukrainian morale and split the allied solidarity over Ukraine, was immaterial. The government could on no account lose farmers’ support in the coming election. Nothing else matters.

A further scandal emerged recently within the Polish foreign ministry where hundreds, if not thousands, of Polish visas had been sold illegally in precisely those third world countries, whose immigrants, the Polish border guards were holding back, often with great brutality, on the Belarusian border. Polish visas give immediate access to the EU and also to Mexico, from where refugees pour across the U.S. border. The U.S. is demanding an explanation and Germany is discussing the possibility of imposing immigration controls on the Polish border, possibly undermining the Schengen open border agreement. It adds to the Polish government’s anti-German and anti-European persecution complex reflected in the election campaign.

The Polish government’s sophisticated internal electoral machine is very much in contrast to the spasmodic infantile outbursts of its foreign policy relations. Yet, when viewed dispassionately by foreign policy analysts they can see an agenda of hostility to Germany and Europe, a sympathy for Trump, a right-wing illiberal pro-family social programme, and a slowdown in support for Ukraine, which is common both to Polish and Russian current policy. Certainly, western countries are holding their breath over the coming election results, in the pious undeclared hope that the disunited opposition parties can avoid fratricidal conflicts and topple the United Right’s  majority in parliament and bring back sanity to Poland’s future foreign policy.

Wiktor Moszczynski                                        01.10.2023