Poland
Tusk after local elections: Don’t complain, work!
The Prime Minister of Poland: Donald Tusk. photo
© Christoph Soeder/dpa
The national conservative opposition party PiS wins the local elections in Poland by a narrow margin. Prime Minister Tusk’s party is once again nominating the mayor of Warsaw.
The day after the election, the Prime Minister drew a mixed conclusion for his party. “What is happy? A record victory in the cities, a lead in the regional assemblies,” wrote Tusk on the X platform (formerly Twitter). What is annoying for the citizens’ coalition, however, is the lack of mobilization of young voters and the poor performance in rural areas and the east of the country. “The conclusion for us? Don’t complain, get to work!”
In the election of the 16 regional administrations, 33.7 percent of the votes went to the PiS, as the exit polls by the opinion research institute Ipsos showed. Projections are not common in Poland, and the official final result is not expected to be announced until Wednesday.
Tusk’s Citizens Coalition came in second with 31.9 percent. She achieved a great success in the capital Warsaw: the incumbent mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was confirmed in office in the first round of voting with 59.9 percent of the vote. The 52-year-old Trzaskowski was narrowly defeated by incumbent Andrzej Duda in the 2020 presidential election. He has ambitions to run again in next year’s presidential election. As a thank you to his voters, Trzaskowski served coffee to passers-by in downtown Warsaw that morning.
PiS strong in the east and south, result as an incentive for European elections
The PiS, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, scored points in the predominantly Catholic east and south of the country. The result is above all an incentive for his party to work, said party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski with a view to the European elections in June.
According to forecasts, in the election of the regional administrations, 13.5 percent of the votes went to the Christian-conservative Third Way. The left-wing alliance Lewica ended up with 6.8 percent. Both parties form the government coalition at the state level with Tusk’s Citizens’ Platform. The right-wing extremist Konfederacja received 7.5 percent of the vote. According to preliminary information from the electoral commission, voter turnout was 51.33 percent.
Result almost like the parliamentary election
The results of the local elections differ surprisingly little from those of the parliamentary elections last October, said sociologist Jaroslaw Flis to the newspaper “Rzeczpospolita”. The PiS, whose poll numbers have declined since it was voted out in the fall, has bucked the trend and preserved its holdings in the regions. “Anyone who believed that the PiS would be completely driven into the ground now has no reason to be satisfied.” The mayoral elections, on the other hand, show that the PiS is increasingly losing voters in the cities and in many places can no longer even send candidates to the runoff vote.
The 29 million eligible voters decided on the mayors of all municipalities and cities. They also elected members for all 16 regional assemblies, 380 district councils and 2,477 local councils. A runoff election is scheduled for the mayors on April 21 if none of the candidates received more than 50 percent in the first round.