[ad_1]
When his term as President of the European Council ended in 2019, Donald Tusk could have fallen into retirement. Instead, the former Polish prime minister returns to his home country for what promises to be a tough final battle with his rival, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Saturday, Tusk he regained control of Civic Platform, the center-right party he co-founded two decades ago. On the same day, Kaczynski was re-elected leader of the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party that has dominated Polish politics since Tusk changed Warsaw for Brussels in 2014.
The renewal of the two-decade rivalry between pro-European Tusk and the more Eurosceptic Kaczynski is likely to play a key role in the country’s next parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2023. The result is likely to shape Poland’s long-term relationship with EU, with which Law and Justice have repeatedly clashed Polish judicial reforms which Brussels considers a fundamental threat to the rule of law.
“The race has begun,” the front page of Rzeczpospolita, one of Poland’s leading newspapers, proclaimed on Monday. “This stormy political weekend began possibly the longest and most exhausting election campaign since 1989.”
Since Tusk left Polish politics, Law and Justice has amassed victories in parliamentary, presidential and European elections. In the last parliamentary vote in 2019, he marked the best result of any party in Poland since the fall of communism.
However, Tusk’s return comes when the three-party governing coalition of Law and Justice seems increasingly fragile. Over the past year, polls show that their support has shrunk by about 10 percentage points about 33 percent, fueled by controversies such as the tighten of Poland’s extremely strict abortion laws, as well as further erosion of headline support during the pandemic.
It has also been wrapped internal struggles. Last month, three law and justice lawmakers marched to form their own group, depriving the coalition of its parliamentary majority with little wafer. Since then he has managed to recover most of them. But the loosening of parliament has sparked the discussion of early elections, either this year or next.
In this context, the return of Tusk has sent a jolt of energy through the Civic Platform that was previously adrift. “I think [Tusk] he felt that law and justice had become surmountable, but that what was lacking was a leading force of the opposition that could do so. And I think he has a sporting opportunity to create such a winning machine, “said Radoslaw Sikorski, an MEP who was foreign minister during Tusk’s presidency.
“The ruling party is now on the defensive and we are back on the offensive.”
But despite the problems of Law and Justice, Tusk faces a huge challenge to reactivate the Civic Platform, which under his leadership defeated Law and Justice in the 2007 and 2011 elections. In recent months, polls ‘opinion have given him a support of 16%, barely. half the level it had during the 2019 elections.
Part of the reason is the emergence of Poland 2050, an emerging party founded by former TV presenter Szymon Holownia, which came in second in recent polls. But the Civic Platform has also suffered from a lack of leadership and has been unable to develop policies to rival the popularity of the generous. wellness programs which have underpinned the success of Law and Justice.
Since his return on Saturday, Tusk has begun a slim critique of Law and Justice’s years of power. He accused the party of being a “parody of a dictatorship” due to the erosion of democratic balances and highlighted the international isolation caused by Warsaw’s frequent clashes with Brussels. But he has said little about politics and observers say attacking only law and justice is not a winning strategy.
“[Tusk] is a strong critic of Law and Justice, which goes very well with this hard core of the electorate against the Law and Justice, so I think that in the short term the Civic Platform will meet “, said Aleks Szczerbiak, professor of politics at the British University of Sussex.
“The problem is that you don’t win with these people. Win by reaching beyond the voters of law and justice. “
Analysts say the first reliable indicator of Tusk’s impact is likely to arrive this fall. He will then have had time to restore his authority to his party, while Law and Justice will test his majority as he tries to push through his new economic plan, the Polish treatment.
“Tusk’s return is a turning point, although it is not yet clear in which direction. The Civic Platform has had a lot of problems, “said Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw.
“Tusk’s return gives the party a chance to recover. It will give a boost to the polls: the question is for how long. If it lasts, it will be a turning point for the party. If it doesn’t last, it will also be a turning point, because it will be the end of the Civic Platform ”.
[ad_2]
Source link
