It is not pleasant to be Donald Tusk today in Poland: three months before the elections, the leader of the main opposition party Civic Platform found himself under fire from all directions. The right-wing Law and Justice labels him "the face of falsehood in politics," the left calls him a "racist and extremist," and Tusk's supporters are convinced that a case is being stitched together to prevent him from running for election.
In recent days, Law and Justice leaders have shifted into high gear with attacks on Tusk, the former president of the Council of the European Union who served as Poland's prime minister from 2007 to 2014. Party leaders, who fear losing their majority in the current parliament in the upcoming elections and thus becoming dependent on the anti-Semitic far-right Confederation party to form a new government, are trying to draw votes from Tusk's center-right "platform."
Current Prime Minister Morawiecki. Called Tusk "the face of lying in politics", Photo: AP
Poland's current prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, released a video last night in which he called Tusk "the face of lies in politics." "Lying in politics has a face today: Donald Tusk," Morawiecki lashed out at the opposition leader.
Yaroslav Kaczynski. Fierce attack, photo: AP
Over the weekend, his deputy and Law and Justice leader, Jarosław Kaczynski, attacked Tusk, calling him "the real enemy of our people." Kaczyński declared at a conference of his party that Tusk must never return to power in Poland. "Let him go to Germany, and damage will be done there," Kaczynski enthused his audience.
The ruling party accuses Tusk of prioritizing the interests of other policies and bodies over Poland's. Tusk's senior role in the European Union, which imposed sanctions on Poland, allows the ruling party to reinforce that image. In late May, the Polish parliament adopted a law to establish a commission to investigate ties between Russia and Polish politicians. If the commission finds such connections, the politician will be banned from playing a role in Polish politics for 10 years.
The law has been cynically dubbed the "Tusk Act" because it is seen as an attempt by the ruling party to ban Tusk from participating in the upcoming elections. Following the adoption of this law, Tusk held an anti-government rally in Warsaw in June, attended by half a million people. It was one of the largest demonstrations Poland has seen in decades.
But Tusk's troubles are not limited to attacks from the right. Three weeks ago, he found himself under attack by opposition parties on the left for trying to attack the current government for allowing "thousands of migrants from Muslim countries" to obtain permits to stay in Poland. The current Conservative government is one of the strongest opponents of the EU's initiative to divide asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa among EU countries. Tusk tried to prove that this position did not correspond to reality and was attacked by the left as "racist, extremist and brainless." "As an opposition we should always work for democracy and human dignity and show that we can connect the security of the Polish people with human dignity," said Robert Bydron, a senior member of the Polish Socialist Party.
In any case, if Law and Justice sought to draw votes from the platform, it didn't really succeed. Although Tusk's party is declining in the polls and has 29% support (up from 31% in June), Law and Justice is also losing ground, receiving 34% of the vote today (up from 38% in April). On the other hand, the Confederacy has already reached 14% – a record so far of a steady upward trend (in August last year the party received 5%, in December 7% and in April 10%).
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