Poles dislodge nationalist Law and Justice Party

The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) has emerged as the single largest party with a vote share of 35.38 per cent and 194 seats in a house of 460 seats. And that makes it impossible to form the government. The Civic Coalition (KO) with a share of 30.70 per cent, and with its coalition partners, the Third Way winning 14.4 per cent and the New Left winning 8.6 per cent, and 248 seats. The three opposition parties are an amalgamation of smaller parties, which include the oldest formation of the Polish Peasants Party and the Greens, which are at loggerheads with each other. The far-right Civic Platform with a 7.2 per cent vote share stands as an outsider. Even if the Law and Justice Party were to join hands with the Civic Platform, it may not be able to form the government.

But the changeover could be delayed because President Andrzej Duda, a former Law and Justice Party member with clear sympathies for his former party, has declared that he would call on the party with the highest majority to form the government. The president has a month to call the session of parliament. He has 14 days to name the prime minister, and the prime minister has 14 days to prove his majority. Only when this process fails to throw up a prime minister, then the parliament will choose a prime minister. So, there could be a delay of a month and more, if the effects of the elections are to be seen in the government.

The new political formation will have a tough time in undoing the many things that the Law and Justice Party has done in turning Poland into a single-party dominated polity as in the days of communism. The ruling party has placed its loyalists in all key positions in the government, and the government media had become the arm of the ruling party. Though leader of the Civic Coalition, Donald Tusk, has promised to cleanse the system and replace nationalist party loyalists with people chosen for their competency, it is going to be a tough task.

The Law and Justice Party has alienated the European Union (EU) and it has been chafing at the EU insistence on liberal politics. Though Tusk is not an ideal liberal, who is more to the centre-right without toeing the extreme nationalist line, he is pro-EU, and he has spent time in Brussels serving the European Commission president. The other issue is Poland’s relationship with Germany, which carries its own historical baggage. The Law and Justice Party had taken a critical, and even hostile, stance towards Germany, reminding Germany of the Second World War. So, Tusk will not have much choice but to continue a tough line with Germany.

The Law and Justice Party had adopted a strong pro-Ukrainian policy when Russian armies marched into Ukraine, but they had changed their view. They seemed to feel that it was rather burdensome for Poland to continue with a pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia policy. The new coalition party that will assume power in the course of the constitutional process will have to take a calibrated call on the Ukraine issue.

The Polish election results do not reflect a clear division between those who won and those who lost. The winner in the simple and straight sense is the Law and Justice party which has got 35.4 per cent, but it is not in a position to form the government. The parties which do not have a clear mandate on their own can form the government because they formed an alliance, and the alliance presented a single list of candidates for the election to the Senate. But each of the alliance partners is an ensemble of smaller parties with strong political positions. The Polish polity is quite complex and complicated.