A heated election campaign preceded the vote on Sunday 15 October in Poland: a factor that highlights how much the outcome of the polls represented a crossroads for the future of the country and was uncertain until the eve of the election. It is no coincidence that the final results have demonstrated the unpredictability of the challenge and upset the current political structure in Warsaw. After the storm, the “Law and Justice” (PiS) party confirmed itself as the leading national force but failed to obtain the parliamentary majority of 231 seats, necessary to govern and obtain confidence in Parliament.
The PiS-led coalition did not reap an exorbitant result and is destined to end up in opposition, after eight consecutive years of government. His electoral proposal had been essentially focused on conservatism in the ethical field and on social and centralist policies in the economic sphere. With a markedly Catholic ideology and tending to the use of aggressive and populist communication, the PiS has structured its proposal to obtain a new popular mandate on the fight against illegal immigration (rejecting any hypothesis of distribution of migrants among European countries, including through the presentation of a referendum question that did not reach the quorum of 40%) and the defense of traditional values, that is, the maintenance of the ban on abortion, euthanasia and opposition to the requests presented by organizations representing the homosexual world, above all gay marriages and adoptions.
Opposing this scheme and obtaining the parliamentary majority needed to form a new government was the coalition of the Civic Coalition party led by Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, Polish prime minister, and expression of a liberal and popular center-right, intent on collecting requests from the centrist or moderate electorate. Tusk, through a strategy that proved to be effective, has decided to expand his coalition also to the political faction “Third Way” (which has declared that it wants to ally with Tusk, on the strength of the percentage obtained of 14.40%) and the social-democratic faction of “The Left”, another partner willing to support Donald Tusk with his 8.61% collected at the polls.
Relations with the EU represent the crucial junction for the future of Poland and the choice of the electorate testifies to the desire to change the institutional approach towards it. However, what will remain unchanged will be the white eagle’s support for the Ukrainian cause, which could indeed expand: the PiS had recently cooled bilateral relations with Kyiv due to the diatribe over the export of Ukrainian grain, aimed at obtaining the electoral consent of Polish farmers, according to the government disadvantaged by competition from the neighboring country.
Donald Tusk has made it clear from the beginning of his candidacy that he intends to support Ukraine in any way possible and will probably also lift the grain ban. In fact, for Warsaw, Kyiv represents the last democratic bastion before the Russian Federation, considered a structural threat to Poland’s security and detested by the country’s public opinion. A Ukrainian defeat would bring the perceived threat closer to Poland’s borders.
Moreover, in recent years Poland has consolidated its commitment to NATO to become the most reliable ally for the USA in Europe, after the UK. A further reason why he will not create contrasts between his line and that dictated by Washington also on the Ukrainian dossier, is an eventuality that would disadvantage his own foreign policy ambitions and reduce his decision-making power within the Atlantic alliance.