Poland’s Democratic Crossroads: Navigating the Election Aftermath and Government Turmoil

Donald Tusk, the opposition leader of the Civic Coalition, greets supporters in Ustroń, Poland, on August 4, 2023, ahead of the 2023 parliamentary elections. Photo courtesy of Silar.

On October 15, 2023, Poland elected members for the Sejm, its lower house, and the Senate, marking its tenth set of parliamentary elections since its transition from communism and the fall of the Soviet Union. Reflecting Poland’s quest for a more perfect democratic government with free and fair elections, turnout for this election was the highest ever recorded in the history of the democratic republic. Approximately 73% of voters in the country showed up to the polls, ousting the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) Party majority in both houses of parliament. This turnout was 11% higher than in the 2019 elections, a sign that democratic participation continues to increase in the country. Moreover, turnout among young voters aged 18 to 29 increased from 46 to almost 70%, another sign of maintained increased participation in Poland’s new democracy.

President Andrzej Duda announced that he would offer the PiS, his own party, the first opportunity to form a government, heightening tensions with a new centrist opposition majority in parliament with little reason to follow Duda’s policy priorities. As funding for Ukraine, judicial independence, media freedom, and more continue to hang in the balance, Poland’s new government can only descend into chaos if the relationship between its president and legislature continues to be fraught. Though Poland’s recent legislative elections are a sign that democratic backsliding is fading away in the former Soviet Republic, the split government result and acidic politics that have taken hold of the government threaten to descend Poland’s politics into chaos, with its citizens in the crossfire.

The Fate of Democracy

Poland’s parliamentary elections came at a perilous time as unrest continues to shake the country. In 2020, Poland was sharply divided between the liberal candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, and the far-right incumbent Andrzej Duda in the presidential runoff election. Duda narrowly won by a margin of 2%—the narrowest election in Poland’s history. Duda’s victory put the country into a collision course with the European Union over his campaign to roll back LGBTQ+ rights and judicial independence, with the EU ultimately responding by fining Poland €1 million per day for their lack of compliance with the Union’s requirement for a free and independent judiciary.

Further, Duda’s administration attempted to remove the main opposition leader from the ballot using the “Lex Tusk” law, which allowed the federal government to form a shady commission tasked with  finding evidence of “Russian interference” during opposition leader Donald Tusk’s government from 2007 to 2015. The law would have allowed Duda’s government  to remove anyone found guilty from the ballot before this year’s elections. Backlash was swift across the country, with an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people marching in Warsaw, protesting that the country’s democracy was backsliding, similar to [situations in] Turkey and Hungary. Though the law was virtually scrapped, anger against Duda’s government endured in the run-up to the elections.

With widespread turmoil across the country, it’s easy to see why the incumbent government was unpopular. The elections for all 460 seats in the lower Sejm and 100 seats in the upper Senate resulted in large gains for all opposition parties. Though Duda’s PiS party received a plurality of seats in the Sejm, at just over 194 seats, Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition received 157 seats and has pledged to form a coalition with other minority parties to form a majority government with 248 seats. In the Senate, the Senate Pact 2023 coalition of the Civic Coalition and centrist parties won an outright supermajority of 67 seats against just 34 for the PiS party, giving full control of the legislature to the opposition and severely weakening the power that President Duda will have in policymaking.

Executive Showdown: Presidential Peril and Legislative Limbo

President Duda has yet to show any signs of conceding any policies or powers to the new government, despite clear evidence that his coalition has lost support among the public. Still, Poland’s strongman must face compromise with the new centrist majority. One example is the new choice for Poland’s prime minister. In Poland, the president chooses an acting Prime Minister to build a majority coalition within two weeks. If this fails, the Sejm then chooses their own nominee. Though Donald Tusk had publicly stated that he had formed a coalition that would never support the PiS party in forming a government, Duda tapped the incumbent Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki of the PiS party, to remain as acting prime minister for two weeks and attempt (and more than likely fail) to build a coalition in the Sejm. The decision was met with sharp criticism from the new opposition majority, who called it a “waste of time” and has been largely seen by the opposition as a last-ditch effort to keep the PiS in power. Morawiecki’s “zombie” government appears to have no ability to survive the two-week coalition-building period and slows the transition into the new government. This is just the first spat in what is an anticipated bumpy two years remaining in Duda’s term, as disagreements are likely to continue.

A major obstacle to Tusk’s anticipated new government will be the executive veto powers that the PiS still holds, which allow the president to block any policies put forth by the legislature and Prime Minister with the support of PiS members in the Sejm who can block any supermajority effort to override the veto. Duda, for one, has signaled in public addresses that he will not support Tusk as prime minister under any circumstances, even going as far as to directly state that he would not be opposed to using his veto power against Tusk’s “controversial” legislation, such as any attempt to legalize abortion. With a collapse in cooperation between the president and legislature, Poland’s government has nowhere to go except grind to a halt as the deadlock between the two entities continues during Duda’s remaining term.

The PiS-led government under Duda also had seen a deterioration in relations between the European Union and Poland, with the E.U angered over illiberal judicial reforms that were enacted in 2019, and a further strained relationship between Poland and Ukraine over future weapons imports. Tusk, the former president of the European Council, is staunchly in support of EU membership and has pledged to repair Poland’s relationship with them by increasing funding for Ukraine and attempting to join the Eurozone trading program, which would tie the EU’s economies and Poland’s own closer together. But as Duda continues to hold veto power and the PiS retains control of many of Poland’s institutions, these changes are unlikely to happen without serious compromise.

A Constitutional Crisis

As Tusk anticipates a new government, he is faced with the monumental task of repairing Poland’s ailing democracy that has quickly eroded under two terms of PiS rule. In 2019, the government passed several reforms designed to increase political control of the judiciary. These included lowering the forced retirement age of judges on the Supreme Court from 70 to 65 but allowing the president to grant five-year extensions to judges he deemed “worthy” of remaining on the court. Further, the parliament took control of judiciary discipline by allowing a committee appointed by parliament to investigate judges for any reason.  In addition, parliament has hijacked the independent National Council of the Judiciary by allowing parliamentary appointments on the body that nominates judges across the country. The radical new system is a departure from the system of self-government by the multi-partisan makeup of judges across the country. All these changes represented a power grab by the Duda Administration and PiS party leaders to make the courts bend conservative and away from an independent judiciary that is a hallmark of a free and open democracy. These reforms remained in place after Duda refused to sign a bill earlier this year that would have overturned some of the changes. They will continue to be Tusk’s largest obstacle to restoring democracy.

Further, President Duda attacked democracy over media freedom that became egregiously restrictive under new reforms. Poland’s public broadcasting company, TVP, faced accusations of clear bias in favor of the PiS. In 2020, Poland authorized the state-owned oil refiner PKN Orlen to purchase the regional newspaper publisher Polska Press from its German owner, putting more media under political control. In one egregious effort that was rejected, Poland attempted to ban foreign media companies from operating in the country, including the pro-opposition media company TVN, which was owned by the American media company Discovery.  All of these efforts were made to consolidate media control under the government, handing over a vital source of information to politicians rather than the people. The weaponization of institutions by the government, both in the judiciary and in the media, presented a clear and present danger to democracy within the country. As Tusk tries to overcome additional democratic backsliding, changes that have already taken place will continue to work against him. Though Duda may choose not to strike down Tusk’s policies, institutions such as the courts remain under PiS control and retain veto capabilities. As Duda and the PiS continue to push the limits of democratic governance, the legislature will continue to remain in constant conflict and cause even more political chaos as a result.

The Rights of the People in Contest

As the government continues to fight among itself over the powers it wields, the people that it was elected to represent appear to be caught in the middle of the fighting, with turmoil sending the economy, foreign policy, and women’s rights into chaos. Women’s rights have come under intense attacks by the conservative-led courts in the country and the PiS-led presidency. The Constitutional Tribunal ruled that there was no constitutional right to an abortion in 2020 and overturned protections, and the PiS party has pushed for a national total abortion ban. This sparked over 400 demonstrations, including in Warsaw, in resistance against the new ruling. Donald Tusk pledged to relegalize abortion, but obstacles remain. Staunch opposition from Duda’s unwillingness to cooperate, and institutional divide remain unchanged, but Tusk’s centrist coalition may even have trouble convincing socially conservative members to vote for changes, especially the Third Way Party, which contends that a referendum would be better to change abortion laws, rather than direct legislation.

On top of these problems, the fate of the war in Ukraine hangs in the balance. Though the PiS has expressed skepticism over increasing support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and even halted weapons exports for some time, the win by Donald Tusk’s coalition means Poland will not entirely oppose supporting Ukraine. Amid Hungary’s efforts to obstruct Ukrainian aid from the EU, Tusk has supported the Union’s actions in support of Ukraine. However, funding for Ukraine is still hotly debated as anti-Ukraine rhetoric and a nationalist sentiment continues to grow among conservatives, and chaos can only continue with a divided government.

A Dream of Democracy

It is still clear that democracy is supported widely by the people of Poland, with record turnout showing a strong and healthy democracy on the outside. However, the institutions that are in Poland continue to struggle with democratic backsliding. With an increasingly active president with acidic rhetoric and a legislature empowered by recent elections to be unwavering in opposing Duda’s iron-fisted rule, compromise between the two looks impossible. Election results may mean nothing if policymaking grinds to a halt as partisan bickering t over who will  lead the Sejm drags on, squandering precious time that could be used to carry out basic government functions.  The divide only continues a constitutional crisis in the country with the fall of judicial independence and free media, and leads to further chaos, a government that does little to serve its citizens, and ultimately a turn toward autocracy.

Until voters turn out in the next presidential election or legislative elections and choose a government that is unified, or at the very least, willing to compromise, policymaking will continue to remain at a standstill. However, Duda’s administration and Tusk’s coalition are here to stay. As the government squabbles, the question remains for the rest of the world and especially for the people of Poland: will Poland have a functioning government that can remain effective for its citizens? With further division, it appears that a Duda presidency and a Tusk-led legislature cannot be effective, at least until the next presidential election.

Andrew Chung (CC ’27) is a staff writer at CPR majoring in computer science and political science. When not writing for CPR, he’s writing for CULR or enjoying a ride downtown on the 1 train. He can be reached at andrew.chung@columbia.edu.