That the democratic coalition led by Donald Tusk, former President of the European Council, succeeded, not without surprise, in ousting the illiberal Law and Justice Party (PiS) and its national populism from power is excellent news. The results of Sunday’s vote nonetheless describe a still polarized society that remains to be reconciled with itself and with the European Union (EU). Because there are two Polands, and their cohabitation has always been tense: cities versus rural areas, liberals versus conservatives, industrialized west versus neglected east. Sunday’s elections did not abolish this divide which we must strive to heal and overcome.
These parliamentary elections were described as the “most important” since the fall of communism in 1989. Voters took note, with a record participation rate of 74.3%, significantly higher than in the first free elections of the June 4, 1989. A mobilization which at least partly explains why the PiS of Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, in power for eight years, failed to once again secure a majority of seats. Given the control that the PiS exercises over the media and over the levers and resources of the State, the possibility was high that it would snatch a Turkish-style victory – following the model of that won by the authoritarian President Erdoğan, in last May, despite the extraordinary upsurge of the coalition opposition.
The fact is that, if Mr. Tusk’s Civic Platform is today best placed to form a government in heterogeneous alliance with two other parties, the Third Way and the New Left, he owes this largely to young people. who voted in large numbers for the democratic opposition. And as much, if not more, to the women who massively mobilized against the ban on abortion, decided in October 2020 by the Constitutional Court, a body including the PiS, all in its enterprise of demolishing the rule of law and subjugation of justice, sabotaged independence.
If, then, the PiS, although having come first with 35.6% of the votes, will probably not be able to form a government, it is because the vote of the libertarian extreme right of Konfederacja has collapsed, depriving the PiS from considering an alliance with it that would allow it to win the majority of the 231 seats in the Diet.
The winds of change raised by these elections are all the more substantial. It is a balm for the ills of a Europe, which sees everywhere the extreme right giving voice and carving out a share of power in governments. For Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán, the failure of PiS is painful: he loses a strong ally and finds himself a little more alone in defending anti-European and anti-migrant positions.
That said, the PiS retains a significant base of popular support, particularly in the agricultural world and among the less privileged Poles. His Catholic conservatism on social issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, worked all the better as he mixed it with measures to combat poverty – an increase in family allowances and pensions, in particular. This Poland, Mr. Tusk would be wrong to ignore, he who, at the time when he was Prime Minister (2007-2014), applied an austerity policy which necessarily did the most harm to the least. well off. The fractures within society will not be repaired if Mr. Tusk, repairing the links with the EU damaged by the PiS, simply becomes a relay for the technocrats in Brussels. However European they may feel, the Poles are a people who have long been torn apart in history, between European powers denying their national reality. They have good reason to be wary.
On the migration issue, there will be loose ends to pick up and misunderstandings to clear up. Beyond the harmful exploitation of xenophobic feelings by PiS, it turns out that, geographically, the Poles are at the forefront of the crisis. It is therefore not abnormal that the arrival from the east of migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine has caused concern among the population. In light of the results of Sunday’s election, perhaps these apprehensions will dissipate as Poland grapples with unavoidable realities: falling birth rate, aging population, acute labor shortage .
Even defeated, the PiS retains control of key institutions, including that of the presidency, occupied by Andrzej Duda, a member of the party whose power of obstruction is real. Understood that he will put obstacles in the way of the new government – especially since Mr. Kaczyński abhors Mr. Tusk – to prevent it from keeping its progressive promises in social matters, from reestablishing the independence of judges and calm relations with the EU. The Poles have just performed a fine act of resistance at the ballot box against authoritarian populism. The expectations regarding the democratic coalition are substantial.