Poland’s pro-EU opposition coalition has ousted the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party and will form a new government following a historic election on Sunday.
According to the final vote count, the liberal Civic Coalition, led by Donald Tusk, the former prime minister of Poland and ex-president of the European Council, secured a combined 30.7% of the vote and 248 of the 460 seats in parliament with two other allied parties.
Having won 35.3%, PiS has gained 194 seats, significantly below the threshold of 231 required to form a government.
The far-right libertarian Confederation party, which campaigned on a platform of slashing taxes and reducing support for Ukraine, fared worse than expected and garnered 7.1% of the vote.
The full results have been slow to come in amid a record turnout of over 74%, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989. In some cities, including Warsaw and Poznań, the rate reached nearly 85% and 83%, respectively, with young voters in particular flooding polling stations. On social media, reports abounded of long queues, with some people waiting until the small hours of Monday morning to cast their vote.
The Civic Coalition and two other opposition parties, the centrist-agrarian Third Way and the left-wing New Left, ran on separate tickets but all pledged to reverse democratic backsliding, restore the rule of law, and repair the country’s relations with its key allies, including the EU and Ukraine.
During its eight years in power, the PiS government passed numerous laws that undermined judicial independence and hindered media freedom. The party also introduced strict anti-abortion regulations that banned the procedure in almost all cases, as well as targeted women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
Before the election, Tusk pledged to unblock the EU funds earmarked for Poland, which have been withheld due to the country’s rule-of-law violations. Brussels has frozen the payment of almost €36 billion ($42 billion) due to concerns over judicial independence and the politicization of the legal system.
The Civic Coalition also promised to convene a state tribunal to consider allegations of mishandling of public finances and subverting democratic standards against high-ranking incumbent PiS officials, including the prime minister, the prosecutor general, and the central bank governor.
It also plans to dismantle a politicized body in charge of appointing judges and to separate the powers of the justice minister and prosecutor general, currently held by Zbigniew Ziobro, a PiS ally.
The efforts could be curtailed by PiS-aligned president Andrzej Duda who was elected in 2020 for a five-year term and who enjoys veto powers.
On Tuesday, Tusk said the opposition was “ready to govern” and called on Duda, who is constitutionally responsible for convening the first sitting of the new parliament and nominating a candidate for prime minister, to “make fast decisions.”
The vote was one of the most important political events in Europe this year as the continent faces a revival of nationalist, populist, and far-right parties.
The victory of the Civic Coalition came after a vicious and polarized electoral campaign in which PiS relied on publicly funded events and used the public media to amplify its message. At the same time, local media outlets owned by the state-owned oil giant Orlen refused to publish opposition ads citing an inability to reconcile “left-wing values” with its editorial line.
According to observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe who were present in Poland during the election, public media impacted the campaign by “openly favoring the ruling party,” which is contrary to Poland’s own broadcasting laws.
Read the full article here
