Poland a year after the change of government
The right-wing populist PiS party had been in power in Poland for eight years when the general election in October 2023 changed the majorities and it was voted out. The coalition government led by Donald Tusk (PO) has tried to reverse its predecessors' controversial judicial reforms and restructure the public broadcasting sector, but has met with fierce resistance. Andrzej Duda, a politician with close ties to the PiS, has been president of the country since 2015.
Only halfway there
Without the presidency, the change of power is incomplete, writes news platform Interia:
“Firstly, Donald Tusk did not gain absolute power. Contrary to the impression he himself conveyed, since 2023 the legislature, but 'only' part of the executive, has been in the hands of the anti-PiS coalition. President Andrzej Duda remains in office with veto and other powers that Tusk has to reckon with. ... After reading the 1997 constitution, Tusk and his entourage concluded that there was no way he could complete his promised de-PiS-ification without winning the presidential elections in 2025. So everyone is waiting for the next elections.”
No mandate for sweeping change
Tygodnik Powszechny sees a lot of continuity rather than change:
“Donald Tusk was always a politician who sought the middle way, who liked swimming in the mainstream. ... Voters have not given the PO a mandate to start from scratch and reverse everything that the PiS accomplished in the last eight years. What they want is the competence of the PO. For it to do more or less the same, but better. ... As one pollster put it in the last year of the PiS government: 'Polish voters want a party like the PiS, one that continues with same agenda as Kaczyński's party, only without all the scandalous faces of the PiS politicians, who make you feel ashamed.' And that's exactly what the voters have got.”