When Polish President Andrzej Duda goes up against his liberal challenger in a presidential run-off on Sunday, there is more at stake than just the medium-term political trajectory of the country. The vote is set to be one of the closest and most important European elections in the past few years, and the result is likely to resonate well beyond Poland’s borders.
Duda takes on his liberal challenger, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, in a race that numerous polls suggest is too close to call. The election is watched closely by European leaders wary of Poland’s political trajectory in the past few years and by progressive politicians worldwide seeking lessons about what does or does not work in taking on populists at the ballot box.
If Duda wins, the Law and Justice (PiS) party would be able to continue to rule largely unchecked. The party’s agenda over the past five years has put Poland on a collision course with Brussels and led the country to be downgraded to a “partially consolidated democracy” by non-governmental organization Freedom House.
Illustration: Mountain People
Duda has courted further controversy by making homophobic rhetoric a cornerstone of his re-election campaign, promising to “defend children from LGBT ideology” and comparing the LGBT rights agenda to communism.
On Saturday last week, Duda said that in the following days, he would propose a constitutional amendment to ban adoption by same-sex couples, which he described as “enslavement” of children.
Trzaskowski has promised to be a more tolerant and open face of Poland in Europe. Trzaskowski has also vowed that he would use the presidential veto liberally to stymie much of the PiS’ legislative agenda, unless there were major compromises from Duda’s party.
A few months ago, defeating the incumbent looked impossible. Duda was riding high in polls and set to win easily. However, after the election, originally set to be held in May, was postponed due to COVID-19, the polls steadily narrowed.
In the first round last weekend, featuring 11 candidates, Duda won 43.5 percent of the vote and was forced into the run-off with Trzaskowski, who got 30.5 percent.
Traditional voting divides were much in evidence, with older voters, and residents of small towns and villages, heavily favoring Duda, and Trzaskowski doing better among urban voters. Both are now in a race to pick up the votes of those who backed third candidates.
An aggregation of polls by Warsaw-based political scientist Ben Stanley puts Trzaskowski at 50.3 percent and Duda at 49.7 percent. Just a few thousand votes might be decisive.
There are certain similarities with another re-election campaign currently under way involving a controversial right-wing nationalist president, and they have not gone unnoticed.
US President Donald Trump invited Duda to the White House for what was effectively an endorsement in a surprise intervention just four days before the first-round vote. Then on Wednesday last week, former US president Barack Obama called Trzaskowski, and they discussed “the importance of Polish democracy,” Trzaskowski said.
The race is also being watched carefully closer to home.
In both Hungary and Poland, the twin bastions of illiberal politics in central Europe, opposition candidates have shown that they can win in big cities.
Winning the whole country might be much harder, but would send a signal that Poland is not traveling further down the path of illiberalism that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is treading.
Over the past five years, PiS has offered a cocktail of nationalism, historical grievances, right-wing social and cultural policies, and generous direct welfare payments, most notably substantial monthly child support payments. It has proved a winning combination.
“There are two schools of thought about support for PiS, one is that it is about money, and the other is that people are affected by the right-wing Catholic propaganda. Our polls show that both are true, but the ideology really is very powerful,” news Web site Oko.press editor-in-chief Piotr Pacewicz said.
Realizing that economic arguments could be less persuasive during the current downturn, Duda’s campaign has taken a more sinister turn, introducing anti-LGBT rhetoric.
In a notable low point, Polish Legislator Przemysaw Czarnek, a member of Duda’s campaign team, said of LGBT people: “These people are not equal with normal people.”
While it is not clear if the harsh rhetoric has won Duda new voters, it is doubtlessly popular among some conservatives.
Trzaskowski has tried to sidestep the issue during the campaign. However, on Saturday last week, he said that he was also against same-sex adoption.
Trzaskowski has focused on a positive agenda in broad terms, speaking about local development and economic improvements.
In an interview, Trzaskowski conceded that PiS had been better at connecting with voters outside major cities, who felt they had not benefited from years of liberal-run governments prior to 2015. He referenced the PiS election slogan of “Poland in ruins,” which it used in its winning campaign in 2015, messaging reminiscent of Trump’s inauguration promise to end “American carnage.”
“We were laughing at it and saying that everyone can see that Poland has changed and is not in ruins. And people in small towns would say: ‘We are not stupid, we know Poland is not in ruins, but most of those changes you have introduced are not for us. You are patronizing us and saying it is a great miracle, but we are not participants in that,’” Trzaskowski said.
Voting data shows that PiS voters are on average likely to be older, more rural and less educated than PiS opponents. However, the full extent of the political divide is more complicated, and simply putting PiS support down to class issues masks a failure among progressive politicians to inspire people.
“This distinction is too comfortable, because it is always ‘us’ looking at ‘them,’ and it is something between pity and contempt,” said Karolina Wigura, a sociologist who has edited a newly released collection of essays on Polish politics.
“PiS politicians have been much more skilful in appealing to deep emotions than liberal politicians have, and liberals need to learn from that,” Wigura said.
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