What was supposed to be a simple reelection campaign for President Andrzej Duda could be a political turning point for Poland. Contrary to expectations that authoritative leaders would use the pandemic to consolidate power, it exposed the ruling party’s vulnerability. The outcome of the new elections, which are expected to take place in late June or early July 2020, is now uncertain. Europe should pay attention, because a new president could help reconfigure domestic politics and restore Poland’s position as a more constructive EU partner

Nič, Milan

Traczyk, Adam

English

SSOAR - Social Science Open Access Repository 

www.ssoar.infoHow Poland's Postponed Election is BoostingOpposition HopesTraczyk, Adam; Nič, MilanVeröffentlichungsversion / Published VersionStellungnahme / commentEmpfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:Traczyk, A., & Nič, M. (2020). How Poland's Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes. (DGAP Kommentar,17). Berlin: Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e.V.. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-69205-1Nutzungsbedingungen:Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz(Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zurVerfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen findenSie hier:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.deTerms of use:This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence(Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Informationsee:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0COMMENTARYGerman Council on Foreign RelationsHow Poland’s  Postponed Election is Boosting  Opposition HopesWhat was supposed to be a simple reelection campaign for President Andrzej Duda could be a political turning point for Poland. Contrary to expectations that authoritative lead-ers would use the pandemic to con-solidate power, it exposed the ruling party’s vulnerability. The outcome of the new elections, which are expected to take place in late June or early July 2020, is now uncertain. Europe should pay attention, because a new president could help reconfigure do-mestic politics and restore Poland’s position as a more constructive EU partner. In early May, just weeks after it entered a state of lockdown, Poland decided to push ahead with a highly disputed election. Amid the global pandemic, a postal-only model was proposed. In the end, the presidential election was called off at the last minute. It became clear that in a country of 38 million in-habitants, a last-minute postal vote was logistically impossible. Postpon-ing the election has averted the worst-case scenario: a situation in which the election result itself could have been called into question and triggered Po-land’s most serious crisis of democra-cy since it joined the EU, 16 years ago. The debacle of the postponed election highlighted cracks in the foundations of the governing “United Right” coali-tion, which is built around the national conservative Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) party. In contrast to Hungary, where Viktor Orban’s party Fidesz holds a constitutional majority in parliament, the ruling alliance in Po-land is not monolithic. It is rather a conglomerate of different groupings held together by PiS’ leader Jarosław Kaczyński. Simply put, the ruling alli-ance is more fragile than it may seem from the outside. Developments before May 10 also showed that while Kaczyński’s pow-er in Poland might not be restrained by law, it can be curbed by political re-alities. Last October, PiS lost control over the senate after it fell into the op-position’s hands in the parliamenta-ry elections. The narrow majority of the “United Right” coalition in the Se-jm hangs by a thread as internal rows Adam TraczykJunior Fellow, Robert Bosch  Center for Central and Eastern  Europe, Russia, and Central AsiaMilan NičHead, Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central AsiaNo. 17May 2020How Poland’s Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes2No. 17 |  COMMENTARYbetween technocrats and hardliners threaten to break apart the ruling alli-ance. It remains to be seen if Kaczyński will be able to maintain the balance be-tween the different groups and hold the “United Right” together. Regardless of the final result of the presidential race, he has a difficult task on his hands. A FAILED ELECTION BACK ON TRACKPiS initially wanted to hold the presi-dential election on May 10 at any cost. Even despite the risks connected with the coronavirus pandemic and nu-merous legal and logistical hurdles re-garding how citizens could safely vote without threatening public health. The leadership of PiS believed that with time, the anticipated economic fall-out caused by the pandemic could hurt Andrzej Duda’s chances for reelection.But it was not as simple as PiS had hoped it would be. Jarosław Gowin, the leader of Agreement (Porozumie-nie), one of Law and Justice’s small co-alition partners, rebelled against this plan, backed up by a handful of MPs loyal to him. Because the ruling coa-lition holds a very slim parliamentary majority of only five seats, and be-cause the PiS leadership failed to con-vince any of the opposition MPs to change sides, Gowin had his way. In this political game of chicken, it was Kaczyński who swerved first to avoid a potentially fatal head-on collision that could have broken the ruling coalition apart, right before the election.Polls conducted ahead of May 10 in-dicated that a significant number of opposition voters planned to boy-cott the election. Therefore, polls in-dicated that President Duda, backed by PiS, would be almost guaranteed to secure the presidency in the first round by winning more than 50 per-cent of the votes. More recent polls have shown that if the election were to be held in normal conditions, the current president could count on the support of slightly more than 40 per-cent of the voters. That still places Duda on pole position, but raises the possibility of a run-off with the lead-ing opposition candidate. The race for the presidency is becoming more and more competitive. Assuming that the new electoral law, which will allow both in-person and postal voting, restores the standards of a fair and free election, postpon-ing the vote to early summer could have a tremendous impact on the out-come of the presidential race. The postponement of the elections has al-so brought about important shifts in the opposition camp. The biggest op-position party, the centrist Civic Plat-form (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), has already seized the opportunity to swap Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, who was falling in the polls, for the popular mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. Polls are already showing Trzaskowski  as the front-runner among the oppo-sition candidates; he is projected to win just under 20 percent of the vote. Other notable contenders to challenge President Duda in the run-off are  Szymon Hołownia, a former television host and Catholic humanitarian activ-ist with two-digit support, and until recently, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the dynamic leader of the small  Christian-democratic Polish Peasants’ Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL). However, support for Kosiniak- Kamysz dropped to single digits after Trzaskowski entered the race.  CLASHING OVER EUROPERegardless of which candidate will challenge President Andrzej Duda in the run-off, it will be a neck and neck race as most opposition voters will throw their support behind any of  Duda’s challengers. One of the main battlegrounds on which the opposition candidate will clash with Duda is Po-land’s attitude towards Europe. A re-cent public opinion poll conducted by the European Council on Foreign Re-lations (ECFR) showed that over half of Duda’s supporters believe that Pol-ish values are under threat in the EU, and that in today’s world, Poland must primarily rely on itself. Meanwhile, as many as two-thirds of Civic Platform and Polish People’s Party supporters want Poland to rely on the EU. In the past, President Duda has compared Poland’s membership in the EU with past occupations by foreign powers. Although the three opposition candi-dates have similar world-views – with center-right Trzaskowski being the most liberal among them – whichev-er candidate advances to the run-off alongside Duda could have at least a medium-term impact on the Polish po-litical landscape.  BREAKING WITH THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM?The Duda-Trzaskowski confrontation would be yet another installment of Po-land’s old and deeply polarizing rivalry between the same two political par-ties. It is a political confrontation that has been poisoning Poland for the last 15 years ever since Lech Kaczyński and Donald Tusk competed for the presi-dency in 2005. But that could change.Both Hołownia and Kosiniak-Kamysz may have the potential to break this pattern and bring about some renew-al of the Polish political system. If one of them makes it to the second round, it could break the dominant duopoly that has characterized Polish politics for years and rearrange the landscape of Polish political parties. Kosiniak- Kamysz, whose supporters mostly hail from the countryside, has gained some momentum in larger cities. He could even attract voters disappointed in the ruling party. Hołownia, on the oth-er hand, is somewhat a political nov-ice. He fits into a wider phenomenon of young political outsiders who cap-How Poland’s Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes3No. 17 |  COMMENTARYitalize on voters’ fatigue with tradi-tional political elites. He is capable of mobilizing the youth vote, attracting voters from different political camps, and even reaching out to non-voters. For all this, his chances to reach the run-off may be undermined by lacking a broad and loyal voter base. CHANGING OF THE GUARDAll three opposition candidates also represent another trend: long over-due generational change in Polish pol-itics. Trzaskowski (48), Hołownia (43), and Kosiniak-Kamysz (38) signal a break from the traditional “old guard” of Polish politics. As illustrated by re-cent developments in neighboring Slo-vakia, generational change could be an emerging regional phenomenon in Central Europe as accumulated frus-tration with blunders and arrogance of populist governments act as a boon to young leaders and new political forces. A potential victory of one of the oppo-sition candidates would further limit the government’s room for maneuver and add to the internal fighting in the ruling camp. It could even be a tipping point that leads to a new parliamentary election. Although most presidential powers are symbolic, the president is still by far the most decisive veto-player in the Polish political system. His or her ve-to can be overruled only by a qualified majority of three-fifths. This means that even if the nationalist conservative government of Mateusz Morawiecki were to continue in power, it would have to find a way to work with a pres-ident who could safeguard checks and balances, challenging the PiS model of government more than anything else since the election of 2015. Although the president’s foreign policy competenc-es are limited and subordinate to the government, the head of state in Po-land could force domestic politics on-to a more moderate track and put his stamp on foreign policy. WHAT IT MEANS FOR EUROPEPostponing the elections in Poland helped the country to narrowly avoid a spectacular failure and a deep consti-tutional crisis. It also spares the Euro-pean Union a serious internal problem. The European Commission has already launched numerous infringement pro-cedures including Article 7 over Po-land’s rule of law and judicial reforms. Holding a potentially illegitimate election would top all former clash-es. Postponing the election allows EU leaders to prioritize far-reaching de-cisions about Europe’s economic re-covery, rather than worrying about its fifth largest country challenging the EU’s cohesion and values.With Duda re-elected one should not expect any major European pol-icy shifts as his foreign policy prior-ities will likely continue to focus on transatlantic relations and the Three Seas Initiative. But a new Polish pres-ident might try to act more construc-tively towards EU partners and seek to rebuild and reframe Poland’s participa-tion in the EU. A new president could even herald Poland’s return as a more active and constructive partner at a time when the future course of EU in-tegration, amid a pandemic and the worst recession of our lifetime, is be-ing decided.ARE POLISH VALUES THREATENED IN EUROPE? BY VOTING INTENTION, IN %TOTALAndrzej DudaStrongly  disagreeTend to  disagreeNeither agree nor disagreeTend to agreeStrongly agreeMałgorzata Kidawa-BłońskaSzymon HołowniaWładysław Kosiniak-KamyszRobert BiedrońKrzysztof BosakSource: 4P research mix (2-12 April 2020, 1,557 respondents). Poll commissioned by ECFR:  https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_polands_presidential_election_political_chaos_and_divides_on_eur12 19 23 135 13 33 1826 35 13 1113 15 24 922 23 16 1121 22 17 87 16 36 15How Poland’s Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes4No. 17 |  COMMENTARYRauchstraße 17/18 10787 BerlinTel. +49 30 2542311-0info@dgap.org www.dgap.org  @dgapevThe German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) is committed to fostering impactful foreign and security policy on a German and European level that promotes democracy, peace, and the rule of law. It is  nonpartisan and nonprofit. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).Publisher Deutsche Gesellschaft für  Auswärtige Politik e.V.ISSN 1864-347Editing Gareth Davies Layout Luise RombachDesign Concept: WeDoAuthor picture(s) © DGAPThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons  Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0  International License.

How Poland's Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes

https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/document/69205/1/ssoar-2020-traczyk_et_al-How_Polands_Postponed_Election_is.pdf

How Poland's Postponed Election is Boosting Opposition Hopes

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

SSOAR - Social Science Open Access Repository