Poles apart—the
presidential election in Poland
by Maria Skóra on 22nd
July 2020 @MariaSkora
The
presidential election in Poland was an intolerant affair—and the argument isn’t
over yet.
Maria Skóra
On July 12th,
the second round of the presidential election took place in Poland. Not only
the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic but also its significance for
the country’s future made this a special race. In the end, supported by the
United Right coalition, the incumbent, Andrzej Duda, won by the skin of his teeth
over Rafał Trzaskowski of Civic Platform (PO).
At first sight,
nothing has changed: the Law and Justice party (PiS) has retained control over
the executive branch. But a more nuanced look reveals deep division in Polish
society and resistance to national-conservative rule. Can that however
be effectively channelled?
Conservative domination
The
presidential campaign started early in 2020, with the final election date
announced on February 5th. More than ten candidates managed to register their
committees officially. But from the beginning it was clear this election would
be less about competing visions and ideas and more about whether Duda could be
challenged and the domination of national-conservatives broken at the state
level.
Before the
outbreak of Covid-19, the campaign was conventional: media appearances,
meetings with voters, interviews and press conferences. In mid-March, however,
everything changed due to the pandemic. Yet while all other candidates
suspended activities involving face-to-face meetings and large gatherings, Duda
was still travelling around the country, assisted by the public broadcaster.
Incumbency
always brings advantage. But these non-essential journeys at the peak of the
epidemic—together with the active support of high-ranking members of
government, such as the PiS prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, and, most
importantly, the involvement of the public broadcaster as a campaign tool—brought a lot of
criticism.
Uncertainty
about the final result made Jarosław Kaczynski, the leader of PiS, attempt to
run the vote on May 10th, despite public-safety recommendations and the will of
voters. The election was finally postponed but Kaczynski’s desperation to hold
it before the aggravating post-pandemic crisis, given Duda’s middling
popularity, remained.
Especially
before the second and final round in July, the competition became very
aggressive, particularly in the campaign of the incumbent, embracing homophobic rhetoric and xenophobic
sentiments. This all threw into question whether the election was free, fair
and honest.
Polarised society
Anxiety about
this election proved a great mobiliser: turnout reached 68 per cent, unseen in
Poland since the mid-1990s. The result revealed the extent of the polarisation
of Polish society, most manifest in the distribution of support for the two
candidates who met in the second round. Both received more than 10 million
votes and the outcome was determined by a mere 420,000
ballots.
The most
important factors distinguishing these two groups of voters were age, education
and place of residence. In a nutshell, younger and better-educated voters,
living in the metropoles and other cities, chose Trzaskowski. Older citizens
from rural areas, pensioners and farmers, as also the unemployed, chose Duda.
These
socio-economic divisions also partly corresponded with the geographical
distribution of support. Essentially, apart from big cities in the eastern
part, western Poland voted differently than eastern Poland—the latter more
dedicated to ‘traditional values’, with the role of the Catholic Church more
significant. Such multi-faceted cultural, socio-economic and territorial
concentration of voter preferences can be also observed in other countries
(such as the United States, Italy or Germany).
Poles abroad
also played a significant role in this election. Not only did their voter
turnout vary around 80 per cent but Trzaskowski won a vast majority of their
votes (74 per cent). There was however a big difference in voter preferences
between the Polish communities in the EU and in north America and post-Soviet
countries, where Duda was an unquestionable leader, most probably thanks to a
new course in the foreign policy of the national-conservative government.
Power grab
The political
landscape in Poland has not yet solidified. Although the national-conservative
coalition, led by PiS, has strengthened its power grab, it might be concerned
with strong resistance within the society, particularly visible at the local
level in charismatic mayors—and indeed with the steadily growing support
for the far right, which in the first round
appealed to almost 7 per cent of voters.
The opposition
has proved once again it can mobilise but still cannot offer a convincing
alternative to the decade-long, entrenched
conflict between a national-conservative but social vision of
Poland (PiS) and a pro-European but market-liberal economic model (PO). The
need for change was highlighted by an out-of-the-box candidate who finished
third in the first round: Szymon Hołownia, a Catholic TV celebrity, convinced
almost 14 per cent of voters with his message of reconciliation beyond the
political establishment.
As for the
Polish left, its once-promising candidate Robert Biedroń squandered his
support. Starting with double-digit backing in February, in June he received
only 2.2 per cent of votes. This sudden decline might have resulted from the PO
replacing its unappealing initial candidate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, with
the charismatic Trzaskowski, the only realistic competitor to Duda.
Nevertheless, the Polish left is in a weak condition and the very progressive
topics Biedroń was trying to bring into public debate did not seem to resonate
with voters. A shift of the political mainstream to the right is visible in
Poland.
State capture
Having secured
its power till at least 2023—the next parliamentary election—there are fears
the governing coalition will launch a final strike on the Polish judiciary and
independent media, to finish the project of state capture. In the eyes of many,
there will be no reconciliation but rather a further turning of the screw, not
only on the political opposition but also on impartial critics of government
actions. The opposition, in turn, has still not learnt the lesson from a fifth
lost election in a row—blaming and shaming PiS voters for their ‘ignorant and
venal’ electoral choices, instead of developing strategies to regain their
trust.
Meanwhile, due
to the dubious campaign by Duda, and numerous irregularities in organising the
election abroad, around 6,000 protests about the election have been submitted
to the Supreme Court by citizens and watchdog organisations. Should these
complaints prove admissible and, if so, well-founded, the final result of the
election could still be questioned. The dust does not yet seem to have settled
in Poland and the fight over the presidential office continues.
・ Poles apart—the
presidential election in Poland
About Maria Skóra
Maria Skóra is head of the international relations programme at Das
Progressive Zentrum. She is also actively involved in the Progressive
Governance (#PGS) event series. She holds a masters in sociology and a PhD in
economics. In 2019 she has been a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund
of the United States and AISGS, John Hopkins University in Washington DC. She
is an alumna of the Young Leaders Program of the Aspen Institute Central Europe
in Prague.
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