Donald Tusk went for pizza on Monday evening. In the district of Wroclaw where people stood in line until 3 a.m. on October 15th to be able to vote. A local pizzeria had provided food to those waiting in the cold. Tusk now went to thank him. The high voter turnout of more than 74 percent primarily benefited his Citizens Coalition and other opposition parties. Tusk could now actually become Poland’s new prime minister.
But Andrzej Duda gave a speech in Warsaw on Monday evening, 8 p.m., prime television time. With a beaming smile, the President once again praised the high voter turnout, saying that the people of Poland had shown how strong democracy is. And then Duda showed how he understands the election results. After careful consideration, he decided to give the task of forming a government to Mateusz Morawiecki. The previous prime minister of the PiS government.
It is a “good parliamentary tradition” to give the mandate to the party that received the most votes. The Law and Justice party, or PiS for short, had once again become the strongest force, but has clearly lost its majority. There is no coalition partner in sight. On the other hand, Tusk’s citizens’ coalition KO, together with the electoral alliance Third Way and the Left, achieved a comfortable majority.
“I don’t understand why the president is subjecting Mr. Morawiecki, Mr. Kaczyński and the entire PiS to such humiliation,” Donald Tusk told supporters in Wroclaw that evening. The three opposition electoral alliances, which want to form a new government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk, had previously agreed on a coalition agreement. “The coalition is set up. Down to the smallest detail,” said Tusk in the evening.
The paper contains 24 points and stipulates that all social benefits that PiS has introduced will continue to be paid. The changes that PiS has made in the media and judiciary should be reversed. This is the only way Poland can get around 100 billion euros from the EU, which is currently blocked due to the dismantling of the separation of powers.
The PiS is courting an opposition party
Even before the president’s speech, Mateusz Morawiecki had expressed a lot of certainty of victory. He appealed to MPs who value “a social agenda, Poland’s sovereignty and the fight against illegal migration” to work with the PiS, he wrote on the short message service -conservative Polish People’s Party PSL. However, both parties rule out cooperation with the PiS.
In a television interview at the weekend, Morawiecki said: “I haven’t packed yet.” He could imagine holding a ministerial post in a PiS cabinet with the PSL, and the PSL could provide the prime minister. Since the election in which the PiS lost its majority, statements from the party that is still in power have been erratic. They sometimes sound like desperation, sometimes like defiance, and certainly like a game for time – which President Duda supports for the time being.
Only the camp around Donald Tusk has a very stable majority of 248 seats; 231 are needed. Tusk’s citizens’ coalition KO had become the second strongest force. The “Third Way” alliance was unexpectedly successful. On the one hand, it includes the green, liberal and at the same time Christian-oriented party Polska 2050, which was founded only three years ago. On the other hand, there is the PSL, which has a 128-year history – and is now being heavily courted by the PiS. After Duda’s speech, its chairman said: “The majorities are known. We are calmly doing our work.”
The PiS sees Poland’s sovereignty under threat
Under Tusk, the “Third Way” can probably choose some ministerial posts because of the good election results. In any case, the Liberal-Conservatives are responsible for the fact that the legalization of abortion did not make it into the coalition agreement. Tusk’s KO and the Left had promised a legal deadline regulation – and thereby received a lot of votes from women. For now, the “Third Way” just wants to go back to the less strict law before the PiS. Morawiecki is now suddenly showing himself to be an opponent of the tightening measures decided by his PiS party, which makes abortions almost completely impossible.
The task of making the country’s judiciary and media independent again is much more complex. On the one hand, this is legally complicated. And it will probably also be difficult with the judges, who are officially still in office, as well as with the journalists who continue to dish out things against the Tusks camp.
The Polish constitutional judge Krystyna Pawłowicz, for example, writes on X: “So when will Poland become German again? When will we hear Hitler salutes again?” The PiS had run a strongly anti-German election campaign and warned that Tusk would sell Polish companies to Germany.
The new Sejm is scheduled to meet for the first time on November 13th. Morawiecki will then be given two weeks to form a government. If he does not succeed, the Sejm can appoint a candidate with a majority who will try instead. Then Donald Tusk’s hour has come.