[ Warmer EU and Kyiv relations along with a focus on the rule of
law, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights could ensue if polls are
accurate]
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HOW A TUSK-LED GOVERNMENT COULD BRING RADICAL CHANGE TO POLAND  
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Shaun Walker
October 16, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Warmer EU and Kyiv relations along with a focus on the rule of law,
women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights could ensue if polls are accurate _


Donald Tusk gestures on Sunday after exit poll results are released
in Poland., Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

 

Preliminary results suggest
[[link removed]] Poland
is heading for a new government run by Donald Tusk. The change, after
eight years of populist rule by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, would
be a remarkable political reversal. A potential Tusk government may be
restricted in its legislative manoeuvres by the veto of PiS-aligned
president, Andrzej Duda, in office until 2025, but would nonetheless
radically change Poland’s domestic and foreign policy landscape.

From warmer relations with Brussels and Kyiv, to a relaxation of some
of Europe’s strictest abortion laws and the advent of same-sex civil
partnerships, we take a closer look at what this new era might look
like both at home and abroad.

Relations with Europe

[People wave Polish and EU flags]

People wave Polish and EU flags outside a TV studio before an election
debate debate earlier this month. Photograph: Wojtek
Radwański/AFP/Getty

Poland’s epic fallout with Brussels and other western partners has
been slightly less noticeable over the last 18 months due to
Warsaw’s leading place in the pro-Ukraine western coalition, but
politicians in many European capitals will be happy to see the back of
PiS.

Over the past eight years, the government has clashed
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Brussels over rule of law concerns, leading to tens of billions of
euros of European funds earmarked for Poland being frozen. In turn,
PiS made attacks on the EU and Berlin a key part of its electoral
campaign. One PiS campaign ad featured an invented scene of a
frustrated German diplomat trying to give orders to the Polish
government “like it was under Tusk”, only to be firmly rejected by
PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.

While Tusk is not the German puppet PiS has claimed
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he will certainly provide a more familiar and friendly face to
Poland’s European partners, many of whom know him well after his
five-year stint as European Council president.

“Poland under the new Tusk government will be a more constructive
player in EU politics, seeking to mend relations with key partners and
restore trust in its pro-European credentials,” said Piotr Buras,
head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign
Relations.

However, Buras noted that there would be a strong and probably vocal
rightwing opposition in the provisional new parliament, meaning
“European policymaking will be the subject of a polarised political
debate which will limit the government’s room for manoeuvre”.

Rule of law

[Judge Mariusz Czajka holding microphone and statue]

Judge Mariusz Czajka holds a statue of Themis during a September
protest in front of a court in Kraków in support of judicial
independence in Poland. Photograph: Beata
Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Over the past eight years, PiS has attempted to install political
appointees in various supposedly neutral bodies, most notably courts
and legal institutions. Reversing this politicisation has been one of
the key promises of the opposition during the election campaign.

“I think it’s extremely important to put forward a new vision of
Poland in which the rule of law and the constitution are respected,”
said Adam Bodnar, Poland’s former human rights ombudsman, who stood
for election to the senate, the upper house of parliament, from Civic
Coalition.

Bodnar said returning the judicial system to normality would be
difficult “under pressure of hijacking from the president and the
constitutional court”, which has been packed with PiS appointees,
and that the new government would have to be clever and flexible.
“It will be like a chess game,” he said in an interview before
Sunday’s vote.

The new government would also need to decide to what extent it wants
to prioritise potential criminal cases for abuses of power during the
PiS years.

Women’s rights

[Members of the public listen to Donald Tusk]

Members of the public listen to Donald Tusk delivering a speech during
a Women for Elections campaign rally on 10 October in
Lodz. Photograph: Omar Marques/Getty Images

Throughout the campaign, Tusk has been unequivocal about his support
for relaxing the draconian abortion restrictions introduced by PiS. He
has faced criticism
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some feminist activists for not going far enough and allowing people
with historical anti-abortion positions into his Civic Coalition, but
Tusk has insisted that the legalisation of abortion up to 12 weeks
would be a priority for a government led by him.

“Abortion is a woman’s decision, not a priest’s, prosecutor’s,
policeman’s or party activist’s. And we have written it down as a
specific project, we will be ready to propose it to the Sejm on the
first day after the next parliamentary elections,” he said in the
spring.

Whether Tusk would be able to secure a majority for such a move in the
parliament, given the more conservative views of some of the members
of Third Way, a potential governing partner in a broad opposition
coalition, remains to be seen. There is also the issue of Duda’s
veto.

Nevertheless, asked on Sunday night what a new government would mean
for Polish women, Civic Coalition MP Barbara Nowacka said: “Safety.
Finally, safety. Young women won’t be afraid to get pregnant, young
women won’t be afraid to go to the doctor.”

LGBTQ+ rights

[WarsawPride and KyivPride march]

People attend a WarsawPride and KyivPride march in Warsaw, Poland on
25 June 2022. Photograph: Wojtek Radwański/AFP/Getty

Under PiS, hate speech against LGBTQ+ people has been tolerated and
even encouraged. Although it did not feature heavily in the current
campaign, the PiS-aligned Duda fought his 2020 presidential
campaign on a platform of fighting so-called “LGBT ideology”
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which he called more dangerous than communism. Several municipalities
set up so-called “LGBT-free zones”, declaring themselves free of
the supposed “ideology”.

The messaging has had an effect – in a 2019 survey, when asked to
name the biggest threat to Poland, the most popular answer among
Polish men under 40 was “the LGBT movement and gender ideology”.
Its absence from this more recent election campaign, however, hints
that PiS understood that Polish society was changing and that the
demonisation of LGBTQ+ people was no longer a sure vote-winner.

Tusk has said a legal bill to introduce same-sex civil partnerships
will be a priority for the new government, despite being controversial
among conservative Poles and even some elements of his own coalition.

“I know that this is the first step and still not popular in various
circles, but we have to show that in matters of dignity, there can no
longer be a purely political calculation that, for example, it is not
beneficial to make a decision because it won’t have the support of
the majority,” Tusk said in June.

Relations with Ukraine

[Man and woman wave little flags]

A man and woman wave miniature flags of Ukraine and Poland at the
Rava-Ruska station during the launch of train route connecting Lviv
and Warsaw at the weekend. Photograph: Ukrinform/Shutterstock

The PiS government was one of the earliest and most vocal supporters
of Ukraine, with fear of Russia and support for Kyiv one of the few
issues that united most of Poland’s polarised society.

However, in recent months, as “Ukraine fatigue” sets in among a
growing minority of Poles, PiS toughened its rhetoric, partly to avoid
haemorrhaging support to the far-right Confederation
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which was openly anti-Ukrainian. This saw president Duda compare
Ukraine to a “drowning person” last month, and the prime minister,
Mateusz Morawiecki, announced a halt to arms deliveries to Kyiv amid a
spat over grain exports.

Civic Coalition has pledged to maintain support for Ukraine and has
criticised PiS for its recent words about Poland’s eastern
neighbour.

_Shaun Walker is the Guardian's central and eastern Europe
correspondent. Previously, he spent more than a decade in Moscow and
is the author of The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts
of the Past_

* Poland
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* progressive change
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* Donald Tusk
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