Is the “tusk effect” enough to disempower the PiS?

Celebrity return to Polish politics will not be a sure-fire success

Created: 01/02/2022, 8:59 PM

From: Aleksandra Fedorska

Donald Tusk, chairman of the largest Polish opposition party, the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska).

© Wojciech Olkusnik / dpa

Donald Tusk has been back in Poland since the summer.

The former prime minister managed to get his party out of the polls.

It is unclear whether that's enough to win against the PiS in 2023. 

• Poland's ex-prime minister Donald Tusk wants to replace the incumbent PiS government in the elections in autumn 2023.

• But the polls of Tusk's PO party have stagnated for months

• Some voters have negative memories of Tusk's first term in office - that is a problem for the PO.

Warsaw - Donald Tusk's career as Polish Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014 and later EU Council President (2014-2019) was crowned with great success.

In the summer, the now 64-year-old Tusk returned to Polish politics.

His goal is to replace the current Polish government - and to be re-elected as Polish Prime Minister.

His return was first and foremost a rescue operation for his party, Platforma Obywatelska (PO).

Until the beginning of July, the largest opposition party was on the decline.

The polls were between 15 and 16 percent.

The turning point came with Tusk and the values ​​rose to a promising 25 to 26 percent.

The Polish commentators referred to this development as “the Tusk effect.” Tusk came, saw and won in the PO, which seemed to have only been waiting for his appearance.

The less successful chairman Borys Budka immediately made room at the head of the party.

Rafał Trzaskowski, who lost the presidential election to Andrzej Duda * (PiS), had no objections and quickly joined the group of people who are ready to do anything for Tusk and his project to return to power.

Poland: Donald Tusk's return to Polish politics is not a sure-fire success

Tusk has already taken two important intermediate steps on the way to power: He has overcome the decline and weak leadership of the PO and brought the party back into the position of the strongest force under the ruling law and justice (PiS).

In the meantime, this position had been taken over by the publicist Szymon Hołownia, Polska 2050.

In the meantime, Polska 2050 is lagging behind the PO with polls of 12-14 percent.

Even months after his return to Poland *, Donald Tusk himself never tires of emphasizing how shameful he considers the PiS government to be.

“I know how much apathy and sadness there is in Poland.

I fight it myself every day.

But we mustn't doubt.

That belief will be the source of our strength! ”Tusk tweeted on December 11th.

But is it enough to win against the PiS?

Donald Tusk has to convince parts of the population

While Donald Tusk is celebrated by his supporters in Poland and the EU, from the perspective of a not inconsiderable group of Polish voters, his balance sheet is not all positive. That does not mean that it inevitably delivers votes for the ruling party. Rather, they are voters who disagreed with the emphatically neoliberal policies of 2007-2014, the idiosyncratic style of government of Tusk and the political affairs of that time. The change of government in the late autumn of 2015 was preceded by a few tasteless scandals among the PO's top management, which are inevitably also associated with the PO's long-time prime minister and chairman.

The neoliberal PO has always emphasized that the Polish state budget cannot cover family benefits such as child benefit or the introduction of a minimum wage. There is no money in the coffers, repeated PO politicians. This attitude, which many Poles perceived as the ignorance and arrogance of a self-proclaimed elite, is the greatest obstacle on the way to regaining power today. which were urgently needed in Poland. Even if Tusk today wants to allay the concerns of some groups of voters about future social policy, many voters lack confidence in the PO's willingness to actively support families and low-wage earners.

Donald Tusk: Legacy from his time as Polish Prime Minister - dealing with the EU and Germany

The legacy issues from the government years 2007 to 2014 are not just about social policy.

It is also about dealing with the EU and Germany.

Most recently, Poland took its own internationally controversial paths in migration policy and in some areas of economic and energy policy instead of listening to the voices from Brussels and Berlin.

From a Polish perspective, some of these special routes were quite successful and corresponded to the majority opinion of the Polish population.

With Tusk, there will probably be fewer opportunities to take Polish special interests into account in the future.

That, too, is a sore point in Donald Tusk's strategy.

It was not very successful for the opposition when it came to protecting the border with Belarus in recent months.

The PO acted chaotically and inconsistently.

The PO MP Franciszek Sterczewski, armed with a plastic bag, afforded curious running duels with the Polish border troops in front of the cameras to provide migrants on the Belarusian side of the border with food - a performance that the party chairman, but also the party leadership, hardly made should have excited.

Instead of giving the impression of being able to govern in a statesmanlike and crisis-proof manner, the PO left behind the image of a barely controllable group of individuals with a disproportionate affinity for the media.

Donald Tusks' return to Poland: it depends on the 2023 elections

There are still just under two years until the parliamentary elections in 2023. With some fluctuations, the PiS stayed at a level of 32 to 38 percent in the surveys. The PO stagnates, despite or precisely because of the tusk effect, at 23 to 26 percent. Although the PO started work on its party program in mid-December, the contours of the content for the period after the 2023 elections are still clear. A combative rhetoric of the new and old party chairman who wants to free “Poland from evil” dominates.

Many new voters are unlikely to be convinced of this.

New ideas for the PO are urgently needed.

If Tusk succeeds in addressing additional groups of voters with an interesting party program that also faces the challenges of social policy, he can win against the PiS in autumn 2023.

However, some efforts still have to be made to achieve this.