What is at stake in Poland’s presidential election?

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

By Aleks Szczerbiak

A victory for the liberal-centrist ruling party’s candidate will remove the last obstacle to implementation of the government’s institutional reform and elite replacement project. If the right-wing opposition candidate wins, the government faces continued resistance from the president and will become more unstable, but an early parliamentary election is unlikely.

A critical election

On 1 June, Poland holds a presidential election run-off between Rafał Trzaskowski – Warsaw mayor and deputy leader of the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s main governing party – and Karol Nawrocki, head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) historical research institute who is supported by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) grouping, the ruling party between 2015-23.

In the first round, Trzaskowski secured a narrow 31.4% to 29.5% lead, and the two candidates are currently running neck-and-neck in the polls. Although the president has little role in day-to-day governance, the election outcome will be extremely significant for how Poland is governed in the coming years.

In December 2023, a coalition government led by PO leader Donald Tusk took office following eight years of PiS rule. The coalition also includes the eclectic Third Way (Trzecia Droga) alliance – which itself comprises the agrarian-centrist Polish People’s Party (PSL) and liberal-centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) grouping – together with the smaller New Left (Nowa Lewica) party.

However, the Tusk government has had to “cohabit” with PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda, and lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to overturn his legislative veto.

As well as vetoing key legislation, Duda could also delay its implementation by referring laws for review by the constitutional tribunal, all of whose members were appointed by previous PiS-dominated parliaments.

For sure, the Tusk government does not recognise the tribunal’s legitimacy and is refusing to implement its rulings, arguing that three of its members appointed by Duda in 2015 occupied positions that had already been filled earlier by the outgoing PO-dominated parliament. Nonetheless, a presidential referral under the so-called “preventative control” mode, means that legislation is only approved after the tribunal’s ruling, which makes it a de facto veto.

All of this has acted as a major obstacle to the government’s efforts to unravel its predecessor’s legacy and implement deep institutional reforms. In particular, Duda has hindered the government’s attempts to replace PiS’s state office appointees where legislation or presidential sign-off was required.

In some cases, the government has used various loopholes to, for example, replace the management of state-owned media and the national prosecutor appointed by its predecessor. Some critics, and not just those aligned with PiS, argue that these get-arounds are legally and constitutionally dubious, if not outright illegal.

All of this means that the presidential election will have huge implications for the ability of the ruling coalition to govern effectively during the remainder of its term of office, which is set to run until autumn 2027.

Rolling back judicial reforms

A victory for Trzaskowski will provide the Tusk government with renewed momentum and a clear two-and-a-half year run before the next parliamentary election, during which it can re-build its support base and restore a sense of purpose (as well, of course, as limiting the ability of a future PiS government to pursue its agenda).

It will remove the last major obstacle to the government implementing its institutional reform and elite replacement project; PO leaders sometimes refer to this as the “closure of the system” (domknięcie systemu). It will also allow the government to regularise its more legally-questionable state appointments.

In particular, a Trzaskowski victory will allow the government to roll back its predecessor’s judicial reforms. Duda always made it clear that he would block attempts to unpick these reforms if he felt that they undermined the legitimacy of his judicial appointments.

Around 2,500 judges appointed by Duda, including the majority of the country’s supreme court, were nominated by the national judicial council (KRS), the body that regulates the Polish judiciary, since it was overhauled by PiS in 2018. Previously most of the council’s members were appointed by the legal profession itself but following PiS’s reforms the majority have been selected by elected bodies such as parliament.

The Tusk government does not recognise these judicial appointments, referring to them disparagingly as “neo-judges”. It also questions the legitimacy of two new supreme court chambers established by the previous government and staffed entirely by “neo-judges”.

The Tusk government has proposed returning to a system of lawyers electing the national judicial council and abolishing the two contested supreme court chambers.

As far as the thousands of “neo-judges” are concerned, rather than subjecting them to individual verification, it proposes dividing them into three colour-coded categories on the basis of how they were appointed. It would then either: allow them to continue if re-nominated by a revamped national judicial council (green); demote them back to their previous, less senior positions following a two-year grace period (yellow); or return them to their earlier professions, or allow them become more junior court officials (red).

However, previous rulings issued by “neo-judges” would remain binding, except for a one-month window during which parties could file for their cases to be re-opened but only if they had previously raised objections regarding a judge’s independence.

By passing these laws, the Tusk government would also make the European Commission less open to accusations of applying double standards after it unfroze Poland’s access to EU coronavirus recovery funds, which were suspended due to concerns regarding PiS’s reforms.

This was in spite of the fact that none of the required changes to the legal system had been made; the Tusk government simply presented an action plan. In its previous dealings with the Law and Justice government, the Commission had made legislative changes a strict condition for unblocking these funds.

However, even if a law removing the disputed constitutional tribunal members were to be passed and approved by Trzaskowski, the other PiS-nominated incumbents’ status is not contested. A more radical overhaul of the tribunal would require a two-thirds majority to amend the constitution, which is impossible in the current parliament without PiS’s support.

Changing the political dynamics?

In fact, Duda has only vetoed six draft laws in total, and referred a similar number to the constitutional tribunal for preventative control, while allowing over 100 others to pass unhindered. Except for a law reforming employers’ health insurance premiums which Duda vetoed in April, he has not questioned the government’s core socio-economic priorities.

For sure, Duda made it clear that he would veto government attempts to liberalise Poland’s restrictive abortion law and indicated that he would block moves to introduce state-recognised same-sex civil partnerships. However, the main obstacle here has been the fact that the governing parties are themselves divided on these kinds of moral-cultural issues so have not even been able to pass legislation for Duda to veto.

For example, PSL, the most conservative member of the ruling coalition, blocked the adoption of legislation introducing same-sex civil partnerships, and joined the opposition in voting down a draft law to de-criminalise assistance with abortions. Unless Trzaskowski’s victory creates a political dynamic that leads the party to modify its stance, the deadlock on these issues could continue regardless of the presidential election outcome.

If Nawrocki wins, however, the government can expect continued resistance from the president for the remainder of its parliamentary term.

A Nawrocki victory would also create political momentum that PiS hopes will carry the party through to victory in the next parliamentary poll, as well as exacerbating centrifugal tendencies within the ruling coalition that could possibly lead to the government’s downfall or even an early legislative election. Most speculation here surrounds whether PSL could peel away and form a new governing coalition with PiS and the radical right Confederation (Konfederacja) grouping.

However, PSL leaving the coalition is unlikely, in the short-term at least, as it would almost certainly require a change of leadership, which seems to have thrown its lot in with PO fairly unambiguously.

An early election, on the other hand, would either require Tusk to resign followed by three unsuccessful attempts to form a new government, or for parliament to vote by a two-thirds majority to dissolve itself, both very unlikely scenarios. Nawrocki could also call an early election if the state budget is not presented to him within four months of its parliamentary submission, but this scenario is not possible until the start of 2026.

Rather, the government is likely to hold together and remain in office until the next scheduled election, albeit increasingly weak and divided with each component part looking to develop an independent survival strategy. All the coalition partners will want to maintain their access to state appointments and patronage, often the “glue” that holds Polish governments and political formations together, for as long as possible.

A limited, symbolic foreign policy impact

The president does have some competencies that relate to foreign affairs, the most important of which is that they are commander-in-chief of the armed forces so can influence debates on security policy.

Ambassadorial appointments also have to be approved by the president so, for example, Poland does not currently have a full ambassador to Washington because Duda refuses to accept the Tusk government’s nominee.

However, Polish foreign policy is determined by the government, so unless the election result sets off a dynamic that leads to a change of administration, its impact here is likely to be limited and largely symbolic.

Trzaskowski strongly supports the Tusk government’s policy of integrating Poland into the so-called European “mainstream” by building closer ties with the EU political establishment and major powers, especially Germany, with whom the previous PiS government clashed frequently. This, they argue, cements Poland’s role as a major player at the heart of EU policy making.

However, due to public hostility, for electoral reasons both Trzaskowski and the Tusk government have had to put support for deeper European integration in areas such as migration and climate policy on the back-burner. It will be interesting to see whether they become more supportive of such measures after the election.

Nawrocki, on the other hand, is an anti-federalist and argues that Poland’s interests often clash with the dominant Franco-German axis. He is likely to support returning to the previous government’s approach of trying to build alternative EU alliances, focusing particularly on the central and easterm European post-communist states, as the most effective way of advancing Poland’s interests.

Nawrocki will also prioritise maintaining close ties with the USA, which he argues is Poland’s only credible security guarantor, and oppose the development of a European defence capability outside of NATO structures.

As far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, there is a broad consensus on the need to bolster resistance to the Russian invasion. Trzaskowski also supports Ukraine’s integration into the EU and NATO. However, he has had to acknowledge that most Poles now feel that Warsaw needs to be more assertive in promoting its interests when these clash with Ukraine’s, and he supports limiting Ukrainian refugees’ access to social welfare benefits.

While Nawrocki also supports providing continued diplomatic and military aid to Ukraine, he clearly favours a more transactional approach to relations with Poland’s eastern neighbour. He has, for example, criticised its lack of cooperation with exhumations of the remains of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War, and pledged to protect Polish farmers from what he argues is unfair competition from Ukrainian agricultural goods.

Nawrocki’s opponents argue that by, for example, expressing scepticism about Ukrainian NATO accession, he is legitimising the Russian war narrative. However, PiS argues that Nawrocki is no Russophile, pointing out that Moscow has issued an arrest warrant out against him.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Aleks Szczerbiak is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex. The original version of this article appeared here.