Can a united opposition oust Poland’s government?

By Daniel Tilles

A new poll has reignited calls for a united opposition to oust the ruling party. But the situation is more complicated than supporters of the idea suggest, and a single opposition list remains unlikely.

“There is strength in unity,” declared Donald Tusk, leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, Civic Platform (PO), on Monday, standing in front of a bar chart titled “United we win”.

The figures it illustrated come from a new Ipsos poll published the previous day, which indicated that a united opposition spanning left-wing, centrist and centre-right parties would obtain 50% of the vote against just 30% for the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.

That would translate into 263 seats in parliament for the united opposition, well above the majority of 231 needed to form a government.

“PiS is not stronger than the opposition; PiS is strong due to the divisions in the opposition,” said Tusk. “United, we will definitely win. No more evidence is needed.”

Except, as Tusk well knows, things are not so simple.

Huge policy differences

To begin with, such firm conclusions cannot be drawn from a single poll, especially when previous polling has shown a much smaller advantage for a united opposition. Last week, a United Surveys poll found that the same opposition coalition would win 42% against 40% for the United Right, the name of the current PiS-led ruling camp.

But even if the findings of the new Ipsos survey were to be taken at face value, the very premise of the question being asked is problematic. As Ben Stanley, a Warsaw-based political scientist and polling expert, notes, if the opposition unites into a single pre-election coalition that would “change the dynamics of the campaign, which is an important variable that this type of research does not take into account”.

In practice, it would be hard to imagine the agrarian conservatives of the Polish People’s Party (PSL) campaigning comfortably alongside the urban leftists of Together (Razem), and for the two parties’ supporters to vote for a joint list, as is suggested in the Ipsos poll.

While the opposition may hold shared concerns over the threat PiS poses to democracy and the rule of law, their differences in other areas of policy would be hard to paper over. On some of the most contentious and pressing issues – such as abortion and LGBT rights – the opposition is deeply divided.

The recent experience of Hungary – where a united opposition spanning left to right challenged the incumbent national-conservative Fidesz party – also does not bode well. While the opposition narrowly led in the polls early last year, that advantage evaporated as the campaign progressed, with Fidesz eventually securing a landslide victory with a winning margin of over 15 percentage points.

Speaking after that election, political scientist Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse told Euractiv that there “are many similarities” between Poland and Hungary’s oppositions, and warned that a Polish coalition could risk similar incoherence and lack of common programme beyond a shared desire to remove the government from power.

Not enough to be anti-PiS

The latter point highlights one of the problems PO has faced, and one of the reasons it is so keen on a united opposition. Since being removed from power by PiS in 2015, PO has struggled to establish a clear and consistent identity beyond being opposed to whatever PiS does.

This in part stems from the fact that the party is already a fairly broad tent, especially on social issues, encompassing both liberals and conservatives. As a result, instead of offering a clear programme, PO has preferred to focus on forging an anti-PiS coalition, forming various alliances before elections. This approach has so far been a failure, with PO losing all six elections – presidential, parliamentary, European and local – to PiS since 2015.

PO would argue, however, that the approach has only failed because it has not yet managed to unite the whole opposition. Yet even in the 2020 presidential election run-off, when most of the opposition coalesced around PO candidate Rafał Trzaskowki, he was still defeated (albeit narrowly) by PiS-backed incumbent Andrzej Duda.

Given the large ideological diversity in Poland’s opposition, a more promising strategy for challenging PiS appears to be having two opposition blocs – one more conservative, the other more liberal – which could then form a coalition government after elections.

The Czech model?

The United Surveys poll published last week suggested that this variant would result in a far stronger opposition majority than would a single bloc. Moreover, whereas Hungary’s united opposition experiment failed, in the Czech elections last year two opposition blocs – one conservative, one liberal – were able to oust the incumbent populist prime minister, Andrej Babiš.

Yet this approach does not suit PO, because it is itself internally divided between conservative and liberal factions, meaning it would be difficult in a two-bloc scenario to decide whom to ally with. In the end, however, the party may have no choice, as other opposition leaders have made their preference for that option clear.

“Two blocs are a chance for victory,” said PSL leader Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz this week. “I’m in favour of the Czech model, of victory, not total failure, like the single list in Hungary.”

Paulina Hennig-Kloska, spokeswoman for Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), a new centrist grouping that is running third in polls, also told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that their research has shown two opposition lists to be the “optimal” solution.

Meanwhile, Krzysztof Gawkowski, the head of the parliamentary caucus of The Left (Lewica), the second largest opposition group, said that they had still not ruled out any scenario. However, last year he too expressed a preference for two blocs. “We will make a final decision next year before the [summer] holidays,” he said this week.

However, the opposition may not have the luxury of taking so long over a decision. While parliamentary elections are not scheduled until autumn 2023, recent rumours have suggested that PiS could seek early elections this year.

Whenever they do come, the opposition – and in particular PO – will face difficult decisions over how to align themselves. Failure would mean an unprecedented third term for the PiS government.

Main image credit: Platforma Obywatelska (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.