The Polish presidential elections on June 1 have been a attention call for the coalition government headed by the conservative Donald Tusk. A year and a half after the inauguration of the liberal executive that came to transform Poland after, the advances have been insufficient. The fall in the popularity of the liberals was revealed in those elections, when the nationalist. Tusk then summoned to seek the political impulse that he and his team need. This Wednesday has found that it continues to have a majority in the SEJM, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, which has given it its support.
There have been 243 votes in favor of 210 against. “I needed this vote for obvious reasons,” Tusk acknowledged after the vote. “It was speculated on whether the government would survive, and it is difficult to work in these conditions,” he argued as a reason to have submitted that question of trust.
“I ask for a vote of trust because I am convinced, and I have faith and security in which we have the mandate to govern and assume responsibility for what is happening in Poland,” Tusk had opted when he started his intervention in the morning. The prime minister claimed the result of his presidency candidate, Rafal Trzawski, and urged his team to assume his responsibility to work thoroughly in the two and a half years left by the legislature. “Enough of weeping,” he ordered.
In his speech, the leader presumed that he considers successes of his government, in the face of the majority opinion that his activity is slow and insufficient. According to Tusk, the expenditure in defense has been increased by 67%, the concession of visa to immigrants from Africa and Asia has been reduced by 50%, the Executive has reinforced the border fence with Belarus and has “returned to the country to the first league.” The prime minister also gave economic figures that point to the consolidation and growth of the country’s competitiveness.
Tusk came to power with 100 promises for the first 100 days of the government, of which he has barely completed twenty. “I am aware that many issues have not been fulfilled,” he acknowledged in his speech. The Executive has determined, however, a good part of their energy, instead of investing them in reconciling a deeply fragmented country.
The prime minister rejected that this search to put the previous leaders in front of justice has been a matter of “revenge” or “reprisals”, and has defended it “as a serious approach to the Polish State to solve all abuses”, which will continue despite the electoral result. As he reviewed, charges have been filed against former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and seven ministers of Pis, in addition to other lower positions. “They won’t convince me that it is a witch hunt,” he said.
“All those who are willing to advance with me, with the Government, regardless of momentary emotions, and to build a better Poland, must vote today in favor of the vote of trust,” Tusk urged. “I am willing to continue the work of this government,” he said. After the vote, he was willing to cooperate with the new president if he wants it, although he foresaw difficulties. And although he did not want to question the results of the elections, he said that in some voting points there are indications of fraud that need to be clarified.
Up to 260 deputies asked for the word shift. Government members claimed action to move forward pending issues, from a tax reduction to the approval of same -sex unions, through decentralization to give more power to local governments.
The opposition, led by Pis, took the opportunity to review his classic attacks on Tusk, as his supposed vassalage against Berlin and the loss of independence of the country. In statements before the session, in which the ultraconservative bench remained practically empty as a sign of protest, the president of the party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, lashed out at the government with arguments such as Germany is transferring immigrants to Poland, to which Tusk replied in his countertople from the stretch that is probably introduced controls on the border with Germany this summer.
The PIS leader also said that state companies are registering historical losses or that religion classes in schools have been reduced. “Poland needs a good and effective government, and we will strive to create it,” he said in statements collected by the local press.
The former Minister of Education with Pismyslaw Czarnek inquired the Prime Minister from the Estrada: “The question is why he does not get carried away by honor and resigns instead of presenting a stupid motion of confidence.” The collide of the extreme right -wing party Confederation (Konfederacja), Krzysztof Bosak, described the intervention of the prime minister as “a long, boring and meaningless speech.” The other co -leading, Slawomir Mentzen, said, in a shared reflection in X: “Tusk boasts of being the most spent in social welfare in history. Great. I wonder if you will also boast that, as a result, we have the greatest debt, deficit and interests of the debt of history.”
The liberal coalition has 242 seats from the 460 of the SEJM. If Tusk lost in what is left of the legislature for the difference of 12 deputies in front of the ultraconservative and extreme right bank of the opposition, it could continue to rule in a minority, although its position would be very compromised.
The opposition would need a supermay of 307 deputies to dissolve the Parliament and convene the elections. Analysts do not foresee for now an advance of the legislative elections, scheduled for 2027, but nobody discards it either. The ability to carry out the budget and the promised reforms to restore the rule of law and advance in a more progressive social agenda would be, however, even more diminished.
SUPPORT OF THE PARTNERS
With the vote of confidence, Tusk has tested the support of its government partners, an amalgam of liberal parties that includes its center -right party, civic coalition (157 deputies), the minority and most progressive of New Left (Nowa Lewica), with 21 seats, and the Centrodech and 32 of the PSL Conservative Party, is the most problematic element for the executive prime minister. His presidential candidate, the president of the SEJM, Szymon Holownia, obtained 4.99% of votes in the first round, slightly below 5% of the necessary threshold to have parliamentary representation if elections were held.
PSL, who in the past has ruled in coalition with Pis, is probing among its militants if they prefer that the party continue in the liberal executive or if it should form an alliance with the ultraconservatives of Kaczynski and Confederation. For now, in any case, they continue to support the liberal government, as the Vice Prime Minister and leader of PSL, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Wednesday.
The Defense Holder has valued Tusk’s proposals on important issues for his electorate. It has referred, among others, to security, memory policy – with some pending spiny issues with Ukraine, between 1943 and 1945 – and matters related to agriculture, especially control to imports of Ukrainian products. With this training in the government, which Tusk needs, in what remains of legislature.
The victory of the ultranationalist Nawrocki, who will take possession when Andrzej’s mandate in August ends, leaves the executive and mine the leadership in which Tusk was working in the European Union. The president has the capacity to legislative veto, which holds in suspense the possibility of passing the laws that Poland promised to the EU, and that served to unlock for the envies of Pis to the rule of law.
After the electoral varapalo, the government has been activated. Tusk will announce in July a restructuring of the Council of Ministers, with fewer ministries and new faces. In the next few days he plans to also appoint a spokesman, a figure to which he has resisted so far.
