In a blow for globalist Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in his first electoral test since being installed in office in December, the opposition conservative Law and Justice party prevailed in the local elections held on Sunday, maintaining its position as the largest political party in Poland.
According to Ipsos exit polling, the local elections held in Poland on Sunday determining the makeup of regional councils saw the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party secure the most votes at 33.7 per cent, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.
The PiS once again bested the Civic Coalition of Prime Minister Tusk, which came in second at 31.9 per cent. This mirrors the parliamentary elections held in October when despite securing the most votes of any party, the PiS was kicked out of power after Tusk was able to form a coalition government with the centrist Third Way — comprised of Poland 2050 and the Polish People’s Party (PSL) — and the democratic socialist bloc The Left.
Unlike the parliamentary elections, there was a significant switch for Tusk’s coalition partners, with the Third Way projected to have secured 13.5 per cent of the vote on Sunday, compared to 8.6 in October while The Left fell from 12.6 per cent in October to just 6.8 per cent on Sunday. The flip-flop in results at the local level could see the more centrist Third Way bloc attempt to steer the Tusk government away from leftist policies, however, this will likely cause internal divisions given The Left still maintains more power in the Polish parliament.
The internal division within the Tusk government could further benefit the PiS, who will be seeking to build on the momentum of their ninth straight national election victory heading into the campaign for the European Parliament elections in June.
Commenting on the victory PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, said per WPolityce: “For those who wanted to hide us, as Mark Twain once said: ‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’.”
Kaczyński added: “This result shows that today we could get clearly more in parliamentary elections, we could perhaps even gain power. But the election in over three years. We must also win the European elections and then prepare and win the presidential election.”
“Today’s success should be treated as an encouragement – an encouragement to act decisively, energetically, to expand our party, and also to create a grand coalition that will win, because Poland must be a country ruled by Polish patriots and honest people.”
This sentiment was seconded by PiS lawmaker Beata Szydlo, who wrote on X: “We won today and we will win soon in the European elections. And let Tusk stay in his world of fakes and trolls.”
Although the PiS continued to struggle with urban voters in the country’s major cities — which even in Poland are decidedly liberal — it made up for this with strong support in the rural areas of the country, including the support of many farmers, who have become a major thorn in the side of the Tusk government by frequently using their tractors to block off border crossings with Ukraine, which Tusk had hoped to foster better relations with.
The tariff-free imports of cheap Ukrainian agriculture — in conjunction with the negative impacts of the EU’s green agenda — sparked farmer protests throughout Europe over the past year and the PiS will likely see to represent the issues facing farmers heading into the European elections, as the pushback against the green agenda, alongside anger over the economy and rising anti-mass migration sentiments, look to bolster conservative and populist parties throughout the EU.
The elections on Sunday have also been characterised as a condemnation of Prime Minister Tusk’s strongman tactics since coming into power, with the former shut down state broadcaster TVInfo, and dismissing the heads of the management and supervisory boards of Television Poland and Polish Radio over alleged concerns of them spreading PiS “propaganda”.
Tusk has also been accused of using the legal system to target his political rivals, dramatically having officers storm the presidential palace to arrest two former PiS government ministers, in a move that was described by former PM Mateusz Morawicki as an act of “political revenge“.
Despite the defeat on Sunday, supporters of the government have called for Tusk to continue his crackdown on the main opposition party, with prominent neo-liberal journalist Tomasz Lis writing that the “PiS is still powerful. DePiSization must be faster, deeper and merciless.”
Looking further afield towards the next general election in Poland, which must take place on or before November 11th of 2027, former PiS deputy prime minister Jacek Sasin argued that the party should look to build relationships with potential coalition partners, including the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL), which is currently in a coalition with Tusk’s government.
Sasin also said that the PiS should look to form an alliance with the populist nationalist Confederation bloc, which has hitherto been critical of the PiS and refused to form a coalition in the past over objections against the PiS being too centrist. Yet, Sasin said that the Confederation — which is projected to have received 7.5 per cent of the vote on Sunday — would be the “natural coalition partner” of the Law and Justice party.
