WARSAW — Poland’s top two leaders met face-to-face Monday, but neither PM Donald Tusk nor President Andrzej Duda gave any sign they are prepared to retreat in their political conflict.
The dispute was sparked by the change of government, with Tusk’s new administration moving swiftly to purge people associated with the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party government, to retake control of the public media, and to roll back changes to the justice system that set off a multi-year conflict with Brussels.
Tusk’s Justice Minister and Chief Prosecutor Adam Bodnar moved last week to replace the head of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office without getting Duda’s approval, prompting the president to denounce Bodnar’s actions as “pathetic.”
Tossed into that volatile mix is the fate of two PiS politicians, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, who are in prison after being convicted of abuse of power, but who are being called political prisoners by PiS.
That’s poisoned relations between Duda, a former PiS member still seen as loyal to the party, and Tusk, who has pledged to return Poland to being a European liberal democracy, and to prosecute politicians and PiS nominees accused of wrongdoing over the past eight years.
In a news conference after their meeting in Warsaw’s presidential palace — where the prime minister had to cool his heels for a few minutes before being admitted to see Duda — Tusk said he wanted better relations, but was prepared to wait out the remaining months until Duda’s final term ends in 2025.
“If we can’t make it, we will survive this year and three months, we will look for different ways,” Tusk said, adding: “Politics is to negotiate, to seek compromise between political forces. But politics, good politics, cannot be about finding a compromise between lies and truth, lawlessness and law.”
He also said he had told Duda that the president “has had a hand since 2015 in the devastation of the rule of law and legal order in Poland.”
In his own press conference, Duda called for “deescalation” of the conflict, but also said: “I appealed to the prime minister to restore the situation in accordance with the law. Not only with the law, but also with the constitution.”
Prosecutorial trials
Duda is outraged over the changes to the prosecutor’s office.
“The dismissal of the head of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office … requires written consent from the president. What the justice minister did has no legal bearing and is worthless,” Duda said.
Some lower ranking prosecutors, many seen as loyal to the old government, have rebelled against Bodnar. Duda met with them earlier Monday.
But Tusk isn’t giving an inch, insisting that National Prosecutor Dariusz Barski was improperly appointed in 2022 so there is no need to fire him as he never officially held the post.
“I only confirmed to president that we’re going to adhere to law, court judgments and the constitution,” Tusk said. “There’s no room for negotiations here — we cannot adhere to law only a bit or to the constitution only a bit.”
“I hope that in the future the president will lean to this interpretation,” Tusk added.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, a top court that is viewed as being under control of PiS nominees, also waded into the fight on Monday by issuing a decree suspending the government’s nomination of Barski’s replacement and ordering Bodnar and “all public authorities to refrain from any actions hindering Barski’s exercise of rights, duties, and competencies.”
Krystyna Pawłowicz, one of the tribunal’s justices, made her views clear in a Sunday tweet, saying: “The neo-Bolshevik demolition of Poland is progressing.”
Imprisoned politicians
Duda is also incensed over the imprisonment of Kamiński and Wąsik. He pardoned the pair in 2015, but the Supreme Court later ruled that pardon was to no effect as it was issued before their final conviction. A lower court reopened the case and in December sentenced them to two years in prison for abuse of power while leading a corruption case back in 2007 aimed at destroying a party that was a coalition partner of PiS.
The two were arrested inside Duda’s palace last week and are now in prison, where they say they are on a hunger strike. Duda said last week he had initiated a pardon procedure to release them, but instead of simply issuing another pardon — which would free them from prison but also underline they had been convicted of a crime, which would strip them of their parliamentary seats — Duda tossed the matter to Bodnar.
He asked the justice minister to begin an amnesty procedure, which can take as long as two months and won’t necessarily return a positive finding. In the meantime, Duda wants the two released from prison, but the government fears if that happens, Duda will again claim that his 2015 pardon was effective and that the two are still MPs, despite a ruling by the speaker of parliament vacating their parliamentary seats.
Duda said he had called on Tusk, as Bodnar’s boss, to release Kamiński and Wąsik.
“I appeal once again to the minister. I have also made a personal appeal to the prime minister on this issue today, to influence his subordinate to make this happen,” Duda said.
So far the government has shown no inclination to release the pair.
“If he decides to grant clemency, of course, the detainees should be released the same day,” Tusk said, before adding another dig at Duda: “I was very keen to convince the president — unsuccessfully so far, I think — but to convince all politicians in Poland in general that they are not above the law, nor do they stand beside the law, that we should all be subject to the law to the same degree, even if some of its verdicts are not convenient for us.”
WARSAW — After eight years of rule by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, Polish voters on Sunday chose change — giving three opposition democratic parties enough seats to form a new government.
So now is the way clear to bring Poland back into the European mainstream after dallying as an illiberal democracy?
Not so fast.
The country’s likely ruling coalition faces years of very hard political graft to undo the changes wrought by PiS since 2015.
Here are five main takeaways from an election that will shake Poland and Europe.
1. Job No. 1 — creating a new government
The final result puts PiS in first place, with35.4 percent, according to a preliminary vote count, and 194 seats, but that’s too few for a majority in the 460-member lower house of parliament.
“We will definitely try to build a parliamentary majority,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The first move belongs to President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member who has always been loyal to the party. He has said that presidents traditionally choose the leader of the largest party to try to form a government, but if PiS really is a no-hoper, Duda could delay the formation of a stable government.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has to call a new parliamentary session within 30 days of the election. He then has 14 days to nominate a candidate for prime minister; once named, the nominee has 14 days to win a vote of confidence in parliament.
If that fails, parliament then chooses a nominee for PM.
That means if Duda sticks with PiS, it could be mid-December before the three opposition parties — Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left — get a chance to form a government. Together, they have248 seats in the new legislature.
There are already voices calling on the opposition to short-circuit that by striking a coalition deal with the signatures of at least 231 MPs, demonstrating to Duda that they have a lock on forming a government.
Once in power, the opposition will find that ruling isn’t easy.
What unites the three is their distaste for PiS, but their programs differ markedly.
Civic Coalition, the largest party under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, is part of the center-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament. But it also contains smaller parties from different groupings like the Greens.
The Third Way is a coalition of two parties — Poland 2050, founded by TV host Szymon Hołownia, and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), the country’s oldest political force representing the peasantry. Poland 2050 is part of Renew while PSL is in the EPP. The grouping skews center right, which means it’s likely to clash with the Left on issues like loosening draconian abortion laws.
The Left is in turn an amalgamation of three small groupings whose leaders have often been at daggers drawn.
2. There’s a mighty purge coming
A non-PiS government will have a very difficult time passing legislation as it will not have the three-fifths of parliamentary votes needed to override Duda’s veto; his term ends in 2025.
The new administration’s first job will be cleaning PiS appointees out of controling positions in government, the media and state-controlled corporations. Poland has a long tradition of governments rewarding loyalists with cushy jobs, but PiS took it to an extreme not seen since communist times.
Most of those people face dismissal.
“We will fire all members of supervisory boards and boards of directors. We will conduct new recruitment in transparent competitions, in which competence, not family and party connections, will be decisive,” says the Civic Coalition electoral program.
“We’ll end the rule of the fat cats in state companies,” says the Left’s program.
The immediate market reaction was positive, with energy company Orlen up more than 8 percent on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Monday, and the biggest bank, PKO BP, up over 11 percent.
Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm — along with a chain of newspapers bought by state-controlled refiner Orlen — hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland. Not a lot of people in the media are likely to survive what’s coming, if the new government succeeds in its goal of shutting down the National Media Council — a body stuffed with PiS loyalists that manages public media.
Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm, hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland | Zbignieuw Meissner/EFE via EPA
But losing a job isn’t the worst of what’s awaiting many.
3. Go directly to jail
When Tusk’s party last won power from a short-lived PiS government in 2007, the winners treated their political rivals with kid gloves and hardly anyone was prosecuted. This time the gloves are off.
In its political program, Civic Coalition promises to prosecute anyone for “breaking the constitution and rule of law.”
It aims at Duda, Morawiecki, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Central Bank Governor Adam Glapiński for mismanaging the fight against inflation, and Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek for heading a controversial buyout that saw the sale of part of a large refinery to foreign interests.
Expect prosecutors to track down the numerous scandals that have hit PiS over the years — from the government of former Prime Minister Beata Szydło refusing to publish verdicts issued by the Constitutional Tribunal, to Duda refusing to swear in properly elected judges to the tribunal.
There are also dodgy contracts issued during the panicky early phase of the COVID pandemic, millions spent on a 2020 election by mail that had not been approved by parliament, state companies setting up funds that poured money into PiS-backed projects, a bribes-for-visas scandal, and many more.
Many people with corporate jobs kicked back part of their salaries to PiS. Additionally, state-controlled companies directed a torrent of advertising money to often niche pro-government newspapers while neglecting larger independent media.
All of those transactions are likely to be examined and — if found to be against the interests of the corporation and its shareholders — could result in criminal charges.
The coalition promises to “hold responsible” people “guilty of civil service crimes.”
4. Reaching out to Brussels
Tusk is a Brussels animal — he spent five years there as European Council president and was also chief of the European People’s party.
PiS’s departure marks a sea change with the EU — which spent eight years tangling with Warsaw over radical changes to the judicial system aimed at bringing judges under tighter political control.
The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure, blocked the payout of €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund, sued Poland at the Court of Justice of the EU, while the European Parliament passed resolutions decrying Warsaw’s backsliding on democratic principles.
The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
“The day after the election, I will go and unblock the money,” Tusk vowed before the vote.
Although Tusk said all that’s required is “a little goodwill and competence,” it’s going to be tougher than he’s letting on. The PiS government tried to unlock the money by passing a partial rollback of its judicial reforms, but they’re stuck in the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal. Passing any new law will require Duda’s signature and without that, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen doesn’t have the legal basis to acknowledge that Poland has met the milestones it needs to achieve to get the money.
“Perhaps the strategy of Tusk will be to try to reopen the negotiation on the milestones and kind of striking a new deal with the European Commission,” said Jakub Jaraczewski, a research coordinator for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based NGO.
5. Making waves in Europe
PiS made a lot of enemies — and the new government will try to undo that damage.
Relations with Berlin have been foul, with Kaczyński pounding the German government for wanting to undermine Polish independence and accusing Berlin of aiming to strike a deal with Moscow “because it is in their economic interest as well as that of their national character: the pursuit of domination at any cost.” Kaczyński and other PiS politicians have also constantly harried Germany for not coming clean about wartime atrocities against Poland.
Tusk has been careful not to touch that issue for fear of harming his party’s electoral chances, but he’s historically had good relations with Berlin — although Poland, no matter under which government, is a big and often prickly country that’s not an easy partner.
Tusk blamed PiS for the downturn in relations with Ukraine after the Polish government restricted Ukrainian grain imports not to annoy Polish farmers and to say it would not send more weapons to Kyiv. Tusk called it “stabbing a political knife in Ukraine’s back, while the battles on the frontline are being decided.”
While Brussels, Berlin and Kyiv will be breathing a sigh of relief at the change of direction in Warsaw, things are likely to be a little more tense in Budapest. Poland and Hungary had a mutual defense pact, blocking the needed unanimity in the European Council to move on the Article 7 procedure.
Without Kaczyński to protect him, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán is much more exposed. There are other populists in Europe, like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Robert Fico, who looks likely to take over in Slovakia, but they don’t face Article 7 procedures and their countries have tight relations with the EU — making it difficult to see why they’d risk that to go out on a limb to save Orbán.
Paola Tamma contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with the final election results.
WARSAW — It’s squeaky bum time in the EU’s fifth most populous country.
After months of bitter campaigning, scandals, gaffes, attacks and just one debate, the political landscape ahead of Sunday’s general election is pretty much where it was a year ago. Two big parties — the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and the centrist Civic Coalition — are far ahead and a clutch of smaller parties are straggling far behind.
It’s a testament to the very deep divisions in Polish society.
The government’s backers see the opposition as traitorous sell-outs willing to hand Poland off the Germany (or even Russia) and to turn Poland into an irreligious, gay-friendly dystopia subservient to Brussels and filled with Muslim immigrants.
Opposition backers warn that if Law and Justice wins a third term in office, it will succeed in throttling what’s left of Polish democracy by completing its takeover of the courts, attack independent media and isolate Poland from its partners in the European Union.
1. What do the polls show?
POLITICO’s Poll of Polls currently has PiS at 37 percent while the Civic Coalition is at 30 percent.
Three smaller parties are also likely to make it into the next parliament.
The center-right Third Way is at 11 percent and the Left is at 10 percent. Both have pledged to join with Civic Coalition to oust PiS from power.
Far-right Confederation is at 9 percent — it’s the only possible coalition partner for Law and Justice, even though its leaders say they won’t do that. The two parties have similar nationalist views, but their economic policies are very different.
2. Why is everyone watching the small parties?
The rules are that parties need to win 5 percent of the vote to get seats in parliament, but coalitions need 8 percent.
Third Way — which unites the Poland 2050 party started by TV host Szymon Hołownia and the agrarian Polish People’s Party — faces that hurdle. If it falls short, the remaining parties in parliament will get a boost, and that would likely put PiS very close to a stand-alone majority.
“How smaller parties will fare is crucial,” said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.
3. Are the elections free and fair?
Free maybe, but not very fair.
The government is boosting social spending, and held country-wide picnics where government officials got to hobnob with voters — all financed by the taxpayer. It is also promising rewards to localities with the highest vote total — a contest that only applies in the smaller towns that tend to be strong PiS backers.
The state-controlled media is firmly in the government’s camp, despite being obliged by law to be impartial. A chain of newspapers owned by state refiner Orlen is also backing PiS — and papers are even rejecting advertising from opposition parties.
Finally, the government has put forward a referendum with four questions that are designed to harm the opposition and don’t actually reflect any real policies. The one on migration reads: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by European bureaucracy?”
The referendum has no spending limit, so state-owned corporations are pouring vast sums into the campaign. The Polish Post Office even sent leaflets to customers explaining the referendum and helpfully showing a mock ballot marked four times “no” — reflecting the government’s view.
Finally, the vote count will be supervised by judges appointed by the ruling party.
As of Friday evening, a grouping of foreign election observers was complaining that they still hadn’t received accreditation from the electoral commission to watch the vote.
4. What are the mechanics of voting?
All campaigning ends at midnight Friday and media stop all political reporting.
Polls open at 7 a.m. for about 29 million registered voters.
More than 600,000 are registered outside the country — a record. However, a new arbitrary rule limits vote counting in foreign locations to 24 hours; if the count is not finished by then all the ballots in that voting precinct are scrapped. Most foreign voters back the opposition.
The polls close at 9 p.m. and the media will immediately flash the result of exit polls — which cannot be published while voting continues — which historically have been fairly accurate.
The vote count begins immediately, and the national electoral commission will announce a running total. By Monday morning there should be a pretty good idea of the official vote winner.
5. How is a government formed?
The first move will belong to PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda.
Polish president Andrzej Duda | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty images
In line with Poland’s constitution, the president is free to nominate a prime minister. Duda said traditionally the president chooses a candidate from the overall election winner — which is almost certain to be Law and Justice.
The newly nominated prime minister then has to win an absolute majority of the 460-member Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
If the nominee fails, parliament takes over and has 14 days to nominate a new PM candidate who then has to win another confidence vote.
If that ends in no government, the ball is back in the president’s court and he has 14 days to pick another nominee. This time the nominee only needs a simple majority in the confidence vote.
6. What happens if no government is formed?
Running through the efforts to win a parliamentary majority could take a couple of months. If that fails, Duda cuts short the parliamentary term and calls a new election, which has to take place within 45 days.
That means a new election — and another bitter campaign — sometime in the spring of 2024.
WARSAW — Poland’s opposition held an enormous rally in Warsaw and other cities on Sunday — claiming more than a million people took part — but the mood two weeks ahead of the election is grim rather than triumphant.
That’s because the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been holding on to a significant lead in the polls. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls has PiS at 38 percent while Civic Coalition, the main opposition grouping, is at 30 percent.
The Million Hearts march called by Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who heads the Civic Coalition, was supposed to lift the spirits of opposition supporters and show them that PiS — in power since 2015 — can be beaten.
“The impossible has become possible, when I see this sea of hearts, when I see these hundreds of thousands of smiling faces, I feel that this turning point in the history of our homeland is approaching,” Tusk told the crowd in Warsaw.
But the mood among the thousands of people streaming through the heart of the Polish capital — many waving red-and-white Polish or deep-blue EU flags — was more sober.
“I’ve had it up to my ears with the government of these awful people who are destroying my country,” said Kalina de Nisau, wearing a wrap made out of knotted EU and Polish flags. “But I’m not certain that this march will change the outcome. It’s very difficult.”
While Tusk and other party leaders were exhorting the huge crowd in Warsaw, PiS leaders were in Poland’s coal mining capital of Katowice to warn darkly of the dangers awaiting Poland if Tusk and his allies win on October 15.
Merkel and migrants
“If we succeed in beating [Civic Coalition] we’ll chase away Tusk. Where? To Berlin,” announced Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, hitting on a popular PiS theme that Tusk is in cahoots with Germany to cripple Poland. He then called Tusk the “political husband” of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He also accused Tusk of trying to organize a wave of illegal migrants into the EU, waving a sheaf of documents he said spelled out the scheme “in black and white.” PiS is trying to deflect the blowback from a growing bribes-for-visas scandal where Polish consulates are accused of issuing work visas for cash, and also of issuing huge numbers of visas to non-EU citizens.
Germany last week brought in heightened border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Poland to curb an influx of asylum seekers.
PiS also downplayed the scale of the opposition march — which may be the largest in Polish history.
Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS and Poland’s de facto ruler, denounced “powerful media” that support Tusk for exaggerating the size of the rally.
“They are able to say, for example, that there were a million people in Warsaw today, as Tusk said, although both photos and police statements state that there were 60,000,” Kaczyński said, quoting an unofficial police estimate. During the rally, the route of the march was 4 kilometers long and the eight-lane streets and sidewalks were densely packed with people.
Tusk seized on the size of the crowd to insist it shows a desire to break with PiS, which has seen years of bitter fights with Brussels over accusations it is backsliding on rule of law and democracy thanks to radical changes made to the justice system.
“It’s not about this being the largest political demonstration in European history,” Tusk said. “Europe lives in the hope that Poland will again become a 100 percent European country, democratic and free.”
But a PiS defeat in two weeks is going to need a very rapid change in fortunes for the opposition. Otherwise, PiS is likely to be the largest party, and will then have to hunt for partners to form a coalition that would see it ruling for an unprecedented third four-year term.
“I’m not very optimistic,” said Katarzyna Osuch, walking along with the sea of people in Warsaw. “I think PiS might continue ruling. … I’m very disappointed.”
WARSAW — The campaign language ahead of this year’s Polish general election is apocalyptic — painting it as an existential battle for the soul of the EU’s fifth most populous country — but the likeliest outcome is a chaotic stalemate.
If the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) hangs on to power for a third term there isn’t much more it can do to wreck Poland without quitting the EU — and there’s little prospect of that. If the opposition pulls off a stunner and wins it will be so hemmed in by PiS-controlled courts and institutions and by a hostile president that it won’t be able to do much more than tweak the optics rather than surgically remove the growths added by Law and Justice.
Internationally, Poland is too important to be kept in the deep freeze forever; with a fast-growing economy, a big military and a key role in supplying Ukraine, it is no Slovakia. A PiS win will mean greater efforts to find some accommodation with Warsaw; an opposition victory will dramatically improve the atmosphere, but there are limits to even an opposition-ruled Poland’s coziness on many issues that are key to the EU.
An opposition victory could weaken PiS’s institutional advantages that it’s been using to skew the playing field in its favor — potentially leading to a longer-term shift away from the right-wing party that’s dominated Polish politics for the past eight years. But it’s no quick fix.
According to PiS, opposition leader Donald Tusk is a disloyal Pole who is working on behalf of both Germany and Russia to turn the country into a puppet state by letting in hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Oh, and he also wants to raise the retirement age.
Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS chief and Poland’s real ruler, thundered to his supporters on Sunday: “Donald Tusk had to agree to make Poland subservient to Germany and therefore to Russia.”
“Stop Tusk. Only PiS can ensure Poland’s security,” trumpets an election ad.
For the opposition, led by Tusk’s Civic Coalition, another four-year term with Law and Justice at the helm means real danger for the future of Poland as a democratic country, as well as undermining the rights of women thanks to a draconian abortion law and an LGBTQ+ minority subjected to attacks by ruling party officials.
“Law and Justice is poison,” Tusk said at a campaign rally this summer. “Every day, every month they are in power is a growing threat to our security.”
Those fighting words are designed to budge the electorate; POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows PiS at 37 percent while Civic Coalition is at 30 percent — meaning any new government is going to require cobbling together a coalition with smaller parties.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party Jarosław Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins, he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU | Marian Zubrzycki/EPA-EFE
It’s not all rhetorical spin.
“There is always a tendency to say this is the most important election since 1989 [the election that ended communist rule], but this time there is a somewhat stronger case for making that argument. The level of polarization is evidence for that,” said Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex in the U.K.
High stakes
The outcome is going to be watched very closely, from Brussels to Kyiv.
For the European Union, the hope is that if PiS is ousted Poland will return to the ways of Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister during a remarkable era of comity with the EU and with Germany before going on to become president of the European Council. As an added sweetener, Brussels will likely quickly move to release €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund held up over worries that PiS’s court system reforms undermine judicial independence.
The EU court cases, parliamentary resolutions, infringement procedures and Article 7 effort to strip Poland of its voting rights would also likely be shelved.
The German government would also sigh with relief at seeing the back of a government that has fiercely needled Berlin at every occasion and also called for up to $1.3 trillion in compensation for the destruction caused by the Nazi occupation; although the opposition hasn’t cut itself off from that demand.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s fiercest advocates during the war — sending tanks and jet fighters ahead of most other countries, offering diplomatic support, receiving millions of refugees who fled the early days of the war, and serving as the main transshipment point for weapons and other aid heading east.
But the election campaign has soured that relationship.
Warsaw led the charge in blocking Ukrainian grain exports, worried it would undercut Polish prices and harm farmers — a key voting bloc. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dared to criticize Poland at the U.N., a furious President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who poses a danger to his rescuers.
“We say to the Ukrainian authorities — do not do what goes against the interests of Polish farmers,” lectured Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who said last month that Poland would stop sending weapons to Ukraine while it rebuilt its own stocks.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau skipped this week’s summit in Kyiv. Getting relations back on an even keel will take “a titanic effort,” he said.
Tusk promised a reset: “We cannot allow good Polish-Ukrainian relations to depend on the negligence and chaos created by the Polish government.”
Polish opposition leader and former premier, Donald Tusk addresses participants of a rally in Warsaw on October 1, 2023 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
A PiS victory will send shock waves across Europe.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, Kaczyński’s closest ally, has been building his illiberal democracy for over a decade. With Rome governed by right-winger Giorgia Meloni, Slovakian populist Robert Fico scoring a victory in last week’s election, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising fast in the polls, the signal is that the right is gaining strength across the Continent.
That’s likely to further erode the tenuous hold on power of centrist parties in the European Parliament in next year’s election.
It will also block any chance of agreeing on a migration pact to tackle the thousands of people crossing EU borders and kill any effort to reform EU institutions ahead of an expansion to Balkan countries and Ukraine.
“A PiS government will block reforms on issues like taxation and foreign policy that threaten the national veto right. There is also a different approach to migration,” warned a senior Polish government official who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity. “We have another model of the European Union.”
Reality bites
However, despite the rhetoric, the reality is that the election is unlikely to mean a radical worsening of relations between Warsaw and Brussels.
Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU, after admitting that the reforms made so far haven’t worked. He vowed: “This time it will succeed.”
But his party has already sent out peace feelers to Brussels, trying and so far failing to backtrack on some changes to top courts to get the Commission to release the blocked funds.
If Law and Justice wins a third term, EU institutions will have to decide whether they want to continue the confrontation, or else make peace with a Poland that has firmly chosen a populist course.
“It takes two to tango. Maybe there will be a will to compromise on both sides,” said the Polish government official.
Permanent ostracism is also untenable, as Hungary showed this week by playing a skillful game of getting the EU to release blocked funds to avoid Orbán vetoing aid for Ukraine.
Despite opposition charges that PiS wants to pull Poland out of the EU in a Polexit — a cry from parts of the far right — Law and Justice says it has no intention of following the U.K. out of the bloc.
The results of the Polish general election could influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
“PiS’s direction has always been toward the EU,” said PiS MP Radosław Fogiel.
And an opposition-led Poland would also be no easy partner for Brussels. After the initial flush of warmth, perennial problems will return like Poland’s continued addiction to coal-fired power, its reluctance to join the euro, and a suspicion of large flows of migrants — also voiced by Tusk during the campaign.
“Even if there is a change of government, there will still be very strong public opposition to a change in migration policy,” said Jacek Czaputowicz, a former foreign minister under the PiS government, speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum.
Poland’s large and powerful farming sector will be a huge issue for Ukrainian grain exports and for future efforts to recalibrate the EU to accommodate new and poorer members.
Ukrainian politicians hope that the war of words with Warsaw will die down after the election.
“War is exhausting for Ukraine and for Poland too, so emotions are felt on both sides, in addition, the election campaign in Poland, that tends to politicize everything, even economic issues,” said Andriy Deshchytsia, former Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, adding: “However, the Russian threat is still here, just like a year ago … so we don’t have any other choice but to sit and search for a compromise.”
As bad as it gets
At home, the election is also unlikely to have the earth-shattering impact that’s being voiced during the campaign.
PiS has done a lot of damage over the last eight years, and it’s difficult to see how much more it can do while still remaining a member of the EU. The state media is a Euro-lite version of North Korea, state-controlled corporations are stuffed with party hacks, the highest courts are firmly under political control, much of the Roman Catholic Church functions as a PiS acolyte, the police don’t mind clubbing the occasional opposition protester, the prosecutor’s office has become a political plaything — dropping investigations of the well-connected while fiercely pursuing the regime’s opponents.
But expanding that control will be difficult in an economy that has a large and vibrant private sector, a strong civil society and hefty private media.
Non-government media operators are owned by foreign companies that have shown no sign of backing out of the Polish market; an earlier effort to tangle with American-owned TVN, the country’s largest private television network, was quickly slapped down by Washington.
The EU is also working on a rulebook that aims to secure media independence against political pressure and foster pluralism; Commission Vice President Věra Jourová warned it “will be a major warning signal for member states.”
An opposition win would dramatically change the optics with Brussels, and a new government would scrap further legal changes to courts. But any effort to roll back those reforms, and any other PiS legislation, will run into a significant hurdle: President Duda.
There is a chance that Poland’s President Andrzej Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution | Leon Neal/Getty Images
There is no poll predicting an opposition win so gigantic that it would gain a two-thirds majority of MPs needed to overturn presidential vetoes. The country’s top courts are filled with judges appointed by the current government, meaning legislation will also be caught up in endless litigation.
“Even if they win an outright majority, which doesn’t look likely at the moment, this is an internally divided opposition and they face a president who will be able to veto their legislation,” said Szczerbiak.
However, there is a chance that Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution.
“Duda is a dealmaker,” said Wawrzyniec Smoczyński, a political analyst and president of the New Community Foundation. “Tusk is a big risk for him and the way to lessen that is to strike a deal.”
If Duda doesn’t play ball, a non-PiS government could be limited to purging state companies, the government and the media of PiS loyalists.
“Overnight you will get the public media back. Everyone will be booted out of there,” Tusk pledged.
Those small steps are unlikely to satisfy opposition backers yearning for revenge against Law and Justice and a clean break with the last eight years.
“For Poland, it’s all fucked up,” said Paweł Piechowiak, taking part in last week’s massive opposition march in Warsaw while waving huge Polish and EU flags, his cheeks painted in rainbow colors. “You can’t wreck this country any more than it is.”
But those personnel changes may have longer term consequences by switching public media away from backing PiS, which could undercut that party’s base of support in rural and small-town Poland.
That could change the political dynamic, especially if the next government is short-lived and there is an early election; it could also influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025.
“The parliamentary election could be viewed as the first round of a longer campaign,” said Szczerbiak.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
WARSAW — Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is in the fight of its political life ahead of next month’s general election — and in its scramble for votes it’s taking aim at the country’s alliance with Ukraine.
The latest blow came from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who on Wednesday said that Poland has halted shipments of its own armaments to Ukraine.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki told Poland’s Polsat television.
It’s true that Poland has sent most of its Soviet-era tanks, fighters and other weapons to Ukraine and doesn’t have much left in its stocks. Warsaw will also continue allowing arms shipments from other allies to pass through its territory.
“Poland still functions as a hub for international aid,” said government spokesperson Piotr Müller, adding that the country is fulfilling its existing military supply contracts with Ukraine.
But Morawiecki’s comments come at a time when relations between Warsaw and Kyiv are the frostiest since Russia’s invasion a year and a half ago, and add to the impression that the nationalist party is undermining its alliance with Ukraine for electoral gain.
“Morawiecki wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious … but to say such a thing at such a time escalates the conflict,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a director with the Globsec think tank.
The catalyst is grain.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have closed their markets to Ukrainian grain imports, in violation of the rules of the European Union’s single market, arguing they need to protect their farmers from price drops.
Ukraine has retaliated by filing a lawsuit against them at the World Trade Organization. It has also threatened to block some Polish agricultural exports to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took a swipe at those countries at the United Nations this week, saying: “Alarmingly, some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theater — turning grain into a thriller … they’re helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda scrapped a meeting with Zelenskyy in New York due to a scheduling conflict, and the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw was summoned to the foreign ministry to explain. Morawiecki characterized relations with Kyiv as “difficult.”
Political calculation
In Poland, the core reason for the move is PiS’s need to shore up its support among rural voters and also to peel away supporters from the far-right Confederation party, many of whose backers are skeptical about helping Ukraine.
The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“Ukrainians ruthlessly took advantage of the Polish government being a sucker, emphasized their sympathy, which of course was not there, took the cash, and now they will declare a trade war on us,” Confederation leader Sławomir Mentzen told the Polish press.
Jacek Kucharczyk, head of the Institute for Public Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, characterized the shift in tone by the ruling party as “a desperate electoral ploy.”
In POLITICO’s poll of polls, PiS has the support of 38 percent of voters while Civic Coalition, the leading opposition party, is at 29 percent. If that holds, Law and Justice won’t have enough seats in parliament to rule on its own and so will have to try to form a coalition; Confederation is the likeliest target, although the party says it won’t join forces with PiS.
But the trends look worrying for PiS.
The government has been hit with a growing visas-for-bribes scandal that now has the European Commission asking for explanations. A new poll by United Surveys shows that if the main opposition parties join together, they would be able to cobble together a majority government after the October 15 election.
Shifting narrative
The U-turn on Ukraine may help shore up some of PiS’s electoral base. But it could cause other problems.
It undermines the government’s main foreign policy win. After years of bitter conflicts with the European Union and other key allies over rule of law, media freedom and backsliding on democratic standards, Poland’s strong support for Ukraine changed the narrative in Brussels and in Washington.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack. The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv, fearing Russian retaliation. Warsaw also took delight in pointing out the shortcomings of European countries like Germany and France.
Zelenskyy even called Poland a “sister.”
In an address to the Polish nation made last year in Polish, he said: “I will remember how you welcomed us, how you help us. Poles are our allies, your country is our sister. Your friendship forever. Our friendship forever. Our love forever. Together we will be victors.”
Opinion polls show there is still strong support for helping Ukraine, with about three-quarters of Poles wanting to accept refugees.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“The risk is that PiS voters broadly support the pro-Ukraine policy, and such a rapid policy change could be difficult to explain,” said Kucharczyk.
PiS has toyed with skepticism about Ukraine in the past — raising the issue of wartime massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas — but the overarching message was that Poland is Ukraine’s firmest friend.
The narrative shift is being welcomed in Moscow.
In New York, Duda compared Ukraine to a desperate, drowning person.
“A drowning person is extremely dangerous, he can pull you down to the depths … simply drown the rescuer,” Duda said.
That got a thumbs-up from the Kremlin.
“Never before did I agree with Duda as strongly as I did after this statement. Everything he said is correct,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
The Polish opposition is also going on the attack.
Radosław Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister and now a member of the European Parliament for the Civic Coalition, called Morawiecki’s comments “criminally stupid.”
“Even if we don’t have much more to give then why is he saying this in public! Does he really want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to calculate that one or two more pushes and Ukraine will fall?” he tweeted.
Kyiv is now trying to downplay any rift with Warsaw.
Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliament committee on foreign relations, said he felt Morawiecki’s weapons comments weren’t linked to the growing trade fight.
“Like every politician, I know that during an election campaign, rhetoric can be quite emotional,” he said.
Bartosz Brzeziński and Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.
Warsaw has stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv and is focusing on arming itself instead, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Wednesday, amid a dispute over Ukraine’s agricultural exports.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat, according to European Pravda. “If you don’t want to be on the defensive, you have to have something to defend yourself with,” he added, insisting, though, that the move wouldn’t endanger Ukraine’s security.
Morawiecki’s terse comments came as tensions escalated between Kyiv and the EU over the past week, after the European Commission moved to allow Ukrainian grain sales across the bloc, ending restrictions on grain imports which five eastern EU countries originally sought to protect their farmers from competition.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia responded to the Commission’s move by imposing unilateral bans on Ukrainian grain imports, in apparent violation of the EU’s internal market rules. Kyiv struck back by filing lawsuits against the three countries at the World Trade Organization.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday took a thinly veiled swipe at those imposing grain bans, telling the U.N. General Assembly: “It is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain. They may seem to play their own role but in fact they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.”
While Zelenskyy didn’t specifically name-check Poland, Warsaw summoned Kyiv’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in response.
Morawiecki also delivered a “warning” to “Ukraine’s authorities,” earlier telling Polsat, “if they are to escalate the conflict like that, we will add additional products to the ban on imports into Poland. Ukrainian authorities do not understand the degree to which Poland’s farming industry has been destabilized.”
Poland is in the midst of a high-stakes campaign ahead of an election next month, with the right-wing Law and Justice government battling for reelection. While Warsaw initially threw its weight behind the campaign to help Kyiv fend off Russia’s attempted invasion, that full-throated support has waned as the consequences of supporting Ukraine for its own farmers have become more evident.
BRUSSELS — Russian President Vladimir Putin has made little secret of his plan to keep up the pressure on Ukraine until Western resolve breaks. More than 500 days into his war of aggression, he now has reason to believe things are working out the way he hoped, even if events are not playing out how he might have imagined.
Governments in Poland, Estonia, Slovakia and others in Central and Eastern Europe have been among Kyiv’s staunchest allies since the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Beyond sending weapons and welcoming millions of Ukrainian refugees, they have been Ukraine’s loudest advocates in the West, pushing for a tough line against Moscow in the face of reluctance from countries like France and Germany.
But as the leaders of some of these ride-or-die allies face reelection battles or other domestic challenges, and governments get nervous about the impact of Ukraine one day joining the European Union, that support is starting to waver.
The most striking example is Poland, whose Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine. The statement marked a stunning escalation in a dispute between Kyiv and its closest EU neighbor over grain shipments Warsaw claims are undercutting production from Polish farmers ahead of a parliamentary election on October 15.
“Ukraine realizes that in the last months, they’re not bordering Poland, they’re bordering Polish elections,” said Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. So for now, “the votes of a hundred thousand Polish farmers are more important for the government than what is going to be the cost for Ukraine. And we’re going to see this happening in many places,” he added.
Morawiecki is facing a tough challenge from Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who has also served as president of the European Council. As part of his electoral strategy, the prime minister is courting supporters of the far-right Confederation Party, which opposes aid for Ukraine.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat.
While it’s tempting to write off the tensions as electoral fireworks, there are reasons to believe they could persist beyond the campaign. As a Western diplomat who asked not to be named pointed out, the grain dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv reveals deeper misgivings about Ukraine joining the EU. “For 18 months, Poland has badgered any member state that would utter the slightest hesitation towards Ukraine,” the diplomat said. “Now they’re showing their true colors.”
The problem for Kyiv is that it’s not just Poland where support seems to be slipping. Since the start of the war, the Baltic states have led the pro-Ukraine charge in Brussels and Washington, perhaps nobody as loudly or effectively as Estonia’s liberal prime minister, Kaja Kallas.
As the daughter of a former prime minister and European commissioner, Kallas was widely seen as the emblem of a newly emboldened Eastern Europe that would ride the Ukraine crisis to positions of greater power in Brussels. But Kallas’ credibility took a hit over a scandal involving her husband, who was revealed to own a stake in a company that kept doing business in Russia after the February 2022 invasion, even as his wife was advocating for ending all trade with Moscow.
Asked about Kallas’ troubles, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that no amount of political upheaval would change the country’s course: “We constantly have elections, and we constantly have domestic issues, but it doesn’t change our policy,” Tsahkna said. “One thing Estonia has had in all these 32 years is the same continuous foreign policy.”
That said, Kallas has been a lot less vocal since the scandal broke in late August, depriving Kyiv of one of its strongest advocates in Western capitals.
Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine | Omar Marques/Getty Images
Then there’s Slovakia. The Central European country has been among Europe’s biggest backers of Ukraine, but elections on September 30 could turn it into a skeptic overnight.
“If you have a society where only 40 percent support arms delivery to Ukraine and your government offers support almost at the level of the Baltics, that creates a backlash,” said Milan Nič, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
Robert Fico, the country’s populist former prime minister, is campaigning on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform that opposes sanctions against Russian individuals and further arms deliveries to Kyiv. He’s on course to win the election, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
A victory for Fico would give Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — one of Kyiv’s biggest European skeptics — an ally on the EU stage. If his party gets enough support to be part of the government, Fico told the Associated Press earlier this month, “we won’t send any arms or ammunition to Ukraine anymore.”
To be sure, Ukraine still has plenty of strong backers in Europe. Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Sweden, Finland and others remain strongly committed, and French President Emmanuel Macron has recently swung strongly behind Kyiv. Some analysts also downplay the importance of Poland and Slovakia’s role at the moment, pointing out that there aren’t many weapons left to deliver in the countries’ armories.
Kyiv, for now, seems relaxed. Speaking at a press conference after an event in Brussels last Friday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna downplayed the static between Kyiv and some of its erstwhile friends: “We have a strong commitment and a political confirmation that none of the political processes will affect the ongoing support,” she said.
It’s hard to imagine, however, that somewhere Putin isn’t rubbing his hands, and watching.
WARSAW — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to rebuild bridges with Poland late on Saturday, seeking to take the sting out of a political dispute with Warsaw by giving awards to two Polish humanitarian volunteers on his way back from a trip to the U.S. and Canada.
Although Poland was a die-hard ally of Ukraine in the early days of the Russian invasion, the conservative, nationalist government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party has taken an unexpectedly hard line against its war-torn neighbor in the past days, largely for reasons related to the impending election on October 15.
In order to protect Polish farmers — crucial to the ruling party’s electoral prospects next month — Warsaw has blocked agricultural imports from Ukraine, in a protectionist move that Kyiv says is illegal and has referred to the World Trade Organization. Amid this dispute over food products, Warsaw made the shock announcement it would no longer send arms to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians.
Over recent days, Zelenskyy has been keen to avoid venturing into Polish electoral politics, but has instead tried to play up the importance of direct relations between ordinary Poles and Ukrainians. In that vein, Marcin Przydacz, head of the office of international policy at the presidency, told the Onet news platform that Zelenskyy had simply visited Poland in transit on his way home to Kyiv and had not met politicians.
Instead, Zelenskyy presented decorations to two Poles involved in helping Ukraine. Zelenskyy said journalist Bianka Zalewska from the U.S.-owned television network TVN had helped provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians and transport wounded children to Polish hospitals. Combat medic Damian Duda had gathered teams to treat wounded soldiers near the front line and set up a fund to assist medics and provide them with training, he said.
“I would like to thank all of Poland for their invaluable support and solidarity, which helps to defend the freedom of our entire Europe!” Zelenskyy said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Duda explained to Onet that he was awarded the presidential order “For Meritorious Service” Third Class for his work since 2014 as a battlefield medic.
“I work in the Ukrainian trenches, saving Ukrainian soldiers,” he said. “I was there until the end [of the Ukrainian defense] in Bakhmut, in Soledar, in Zaporizhzhia,” he said. “Our work is voluntary, our work is cost-free and I am glad that risking our lives to help another human being has been noticed by President Zelenskyy,” the medic said.
Kamil Turecki is a journalist with Poland’s Onet, a sister publication of POLITICO, also owned by Axel Springer.
Ukraine has filed lawsuits against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over their decision to ban grain imports, in a row that has split the EU and could hurt Kyiv’s prospects of joining the bloc.
“It is fundamentally important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban the import of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them in the WTO,” First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliya Svyridenko said in a statement.
Svyridenko added that the lawsuits, together with pressure from the European Commission and other member countries, “will help restore normal trade between Ukraine and neighboring countries, as well as show solidarity between us.”
The decision comes after the three countries rebelled against a European Commission decision last Friday to end temporary import restrictions — implemented in the spring in an attempt to mitigate a supply glut — and once again allow Ukrainian grain sales across the EU.
The bans by the three central European countries are intended to protect their farmers from a surge in exports from grain superpower Ukraine, following Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.
“We hope that these states will lift their restrictions and we will not have to clarify the relationship in the courts for a long time,” Svyridenko said.
RADAWIEC DUŻY, Poland — Forget mass campaign rallies: Poland’s ruling conservatives are betting that prayer, straw-weaving contests and homegrown disco hits can win them this fall’s general election.
At an airstrip in Radawiec Duży, in the country’s eastern rural heartland, planes have been cleared to make way for the central stage. Some 200 people are ushered to their seats to the sound of folk music sung by a local choir.
Despite the sweltering summer heat, the men wear dark suits and the women traditional floral dresses and skirts as they gather around the stage. On this otherwise barren stretch of land, everything — and everyone — is adorned with stems of straw.
Dożynki, as the festival is called, is a celebration of rural life and the summer harvest. At its heart lie the elaborate sculptures woven by local peasant women. Later in the day, a competition will be held to choose the best one, from among those crafted into a Polish eagle, storks and even a crucified Jesus Christ.
The festival is held annually, and countless others like it take place throughout rural Poland between August and September. This year, however, it takes on a double meaning, as it melds neatly into a string of what are being cast as “picnics” in which the ruling party is hoping to shore up its support in traditional countryside bastions.
On October 15, Poland will hold a national election in which Jarosław Kaczyński’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) wants to win an unprecedented third term in office. To do so, they need the support of rural voters. But amid mass protests by farmers, furious over farm produce pouring across the border from Ukraine, their traditional constituency is wavering.
Preaching to the choir
One by one, local dignitaries take the stage to thank the farmers for their hard work and dedication. Jarosław Stawiarski, the 58-year-old marshall of the Lublin voivodeship, or region, decides to take it up a notch, highlighting that the PiS-led government has done more to help the countryside than any other before it.
“The Polish countryside is the essence of our nation,” he tells the crowd. “The people in power now are doing everything they can to ensure that the farmer’s toil is fairly rewarded. God bless.”
Bishop Mieczysław Cisło leads a traditional Catholic mass with a cautionary message: The secular West is a threat to Poland’s traditional way of life.
“Today a fundamental conflict is taking place over the shape of a united Europe and the attitude of those who are responsible for their homeland, for the nation,” Cisło says.
“People don’t appreciate the great sacrifice, every drop of blood shed for the nation, every drop of sweat from the farmer’s forehead that soaked into the native soil.”
Poland’s education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, breaks bread with participants of the harvest festival in Radawiec Duży | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
In the VIP tent, Poland’s education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, nods in agreement, as do the local lawmakers, businessmen, military officials and clergymen seated around him.
Soon, everyone will break bread blessed by Cisło.
Target voters
Most of the people gathered at the airstrip, however, are farther afield, mingling among the stands selling curly fries, sausages, beer and tractor-shaped balloons. There’s an amusement park with a 30-meter drop ride and bumper cars. Older children can experience what it feels like to be part of Poland’s burgeoning military by holding a sniper rifle under the watchful eye of a uniformed army officer.
A PiS volunteer collects voters’ signatures. She gets one from a frail 80-year-old man called Marek, who’s biked here from the regional capital of Lublin, about 12 kilometers away.
“Donald Tusk is an anti-Polish German,” he says, referring to the leader of the main opposition group, the Civic Coalition, which is seeking to dethrone the government. “PiS doesn’t lie — at least not usually.”
Older children can experience what it feels like to be part of Poland’s burgeoning military by holding a sniper rifle under the watchful eye of a uniformed army officer | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
Marek declines to give his full name because he doesn’t trust the Western media.
Back by the stage, the last of the speeches are finished, the straw sculptures are taken down, and the VIP guests disperse.
The organizers are lucky — similar PiS-linked celebrations elsewhere in the country this summer have not gone as smoothly, with one resulting in the near crash of a Black Hawk helicopter worth tens of millions of dollars.
‘Not my vibe’
Soon the stage is being prepared for evening concerts of disco polo, a Polish variant of dance pop that is hugely popular in the countryside.
The crowd has swelled to thousands — but it’s also undergone a generational change.
Patryk Bielak, 30, came with his girlfriend, but they skipped the earlier part of the program.
“We came for Zenek,” he says, referring to one of the disco polo performers. “We’re young, we’re not interested in political pandering.”
Bielak plans to vote for the Civic Coalition.
Disco polo band Bayera on the stage of the harvest festival in Radawiec Duży | Bartosz Brzeziński/POLITICO
Another late arrival, Gabriela Frąk, 20, has opted for the far-right Konfederacja.
“PiS has nothing to offer young people,” she says. “Everything is packaged for seniors who won’t have much influence on what will happen in Poland in 10, 15 or 20 years.”
With just over a month to go before the October election, PiS is still in the lead with 37 percent of the vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. The Civic Coalition is in second place with 31 percent, followed by Konfederacja with 10 percent.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to correct the first name of Poland’s education minister.
