Test Hidden Power Crisis conducted by Przemysław Sadura and Sławomir Sierakowski on the occasion of the election's anniversary on October 15 indicated a feeling of disappointment with the government and falling recognition with the forming coalition. In the little than 2 months since the election anniversary, nothing has happened that could reverse these trends.
One can so hazard the hypothesis that the first anniversary of the Tusk government – alongside the joy that we do not gotta see Minister Czarnek in MEiN, and Michael Rachoń stars at most at Sakiewicz – is accompanied by frustrations and disappointments that the changes go so slow and so persistently that so many hopes that the large mobilization, which took place on October 15, failed.
At the same time, given the hard conditions of this government, its balance sheet after a year must be assessed as mostly positive. However, if the government does not begin to deliver more, if further advancement is not made, then the coalition's governments on October 15 may only be a break in the long populist political cycle.
Conditions of governance
When assessing the government, you request to remember 3 difficulties, limiting its field of action. The first is the legacy of the PiS. In the period 2015-2023, we faced an unprecedented attack in Poland after 1989 on the standards of a democratic regulation of law, an effort to rebuild the strategy into any authoritarian hybrid like Hungary Orbán.
This effort failed, but left behind many completely distorted, deformed institutions, acting in a way completely incompatible with the function prescribed in the Constitution. Best, most meaningful example is the Court, erstwhile Przyłębska, present Święczkowski, but many others can be exchanged. These institutions cannot be left in the state to which they were led by the Law and, at the same time, cannot always be repaired by following the letters of law.
The PiS lost power in October, but won the most votes in the election. It remains a strong opposition and despite the failure of TVP has the means to sow ‘sematic chaos’, presenting attempts to rebuild the regulation of law as a ‘anarcho-dictature’. This chaos helps to strengthen institutions specified as the aforementioned Court or neo Chambers of the ultimate Court.
Andrzej Duda, who has the right veto, sits at the Presidential Palace. Cohabitation with the president from the Law and Justice is the second fundamental regulation of the government. Duda has not so far adopted an atomic option to block everything the government does, but at the same time it is very clear that the president will not give way to reforms broken by the Law and Justice – often, as in the case of neo-KRS with its key participation – the institution.
Finally, the 3rd regulation of coalition regulation is due to its interior ideological differentiation. It is created by 7 parties (PO, Modern, Greens, IP, Nowa Lewica, Poland 2050, PSL) representing respective different families in the European Parliament. Their coalition could never have arisen if it had not been for the request to isolate populists from the power of the PiS – or if Kaczyński had not frightened the PSL about how he treated partners like Lepper or Gowin in the past.
This cordonic nature of the coalition makes it hard in respective areas – tax-contributory progress, the level and method of financing public services, housing policy, yet abortion and partnerships – to agree on common policies. Not only due to ideological differences between politicians, but besides due to different expectations and frequently due to the interests of the electorates they represent.
Two imposibilisms
In another words, the coalition's year of regulation on October 15 is simply a year of dealing with 2 imposibilisms. External, shaped by the legacy of the PiS governments and the strength of the veto of president Duda. And the second, internal, resulting from fundamental differences in the coalition, leading to stalemate on issues specified as women's rights or housing.
At first, with the power of victory, the coalition broke both these imposibilisms, delivering issues to which the Law and Justices remained helpless. The most crucial accomplishment was the unlocking of funds from KPO. It was besides possible to reconstruct in vitro funding, to pass increases for the budget which the PiS consistently starved, and to her reasonable wage demands he responded with organized hate.
Using a alternatively creative explanation of the rules, the government besides managed to break PiS-owski's concrete in TVP and the prosecutor's office. Thanks to this last mill of justice, they began to get active in cases specified as the RARS scandal or the Justice Fund, and the first people – in rank to the Deputy Minister included – heard allegations. At the same time, the longer the coalition regulation lasts, the more frequently it collides with both imposibilisms.
Still not normal.
This is besides the case where there is simply a consensus among the coalition forces: mainly in the field of restoring 'normality' after the Law and European policies.
This last area is even better. Poland stopped being a sick man of Europe, symbolically returning to the mainstream of European politics. Against the criticism of the PiS and its media about "anarcho-dictator", "political prisoners" and "the Tusk regime", from the outside against the background of what is happening in France or Germany, Poland may even be regarded as an example of democratic stability.
Closely, however, the state that is upset by the Law and Justice does not act normally. A year after the change of government we do not have a functioning constitutional court, the ultimate Court and universal courts are swamped by the neo-KRS and non-Judges, whose sentences make increasingly burdensome chaos in the legal system. It is not the government's fault, the change is blocking Duda here, but it is the fact that there has been small advancement on rebuilding the regulation of law after PiS after a year in many areas.
Where the top literary pathologies have been removed – in the prosecutor's office, education, science, culture – the fresh government has inactive not full presented its imagination of policies in these areas after the Law and Justice and has not begun reforms essential for its implementation. any ideas come out of the Ministry of Education – although it is stuck unnecessarily in disputes around specified details as homework or spiritual lessons – the debate is taking place in the Ministry of Culture, but it is already the Ministry of discipline that has become mainly an area that is damaging to the full government's controversy. However, we are inactive waiting for fresh solutions concerning independent prosecutors or public media.
Conservative anchor and the problem of neoliberal populism
From the beginning, it was known that this government would have a clear conservative anchor – and possibly if it had not been for conditional support for the change of power of parts of the disappointed Conservative PiS willing to vote for the 3rd Way, it would never have arisen. After a year, however, it can be said that a conservative anchor is so strong that it frequently gives the impression that it controls an full government ship.
This is best seen with respect to women's rights. No reasonable individual hoped that in this Sejm within a 100 days of the fresh government would be able to introduce civilian abortion law – but that within a year no tangible advancement has been made herethat Duda had nothing to veto, however, is rather a disappointment and as studies have already shown, a origin demobilizing the electorate. The same can be said about partnerships.
Fighting to return to power, Tusk promised that nothing that was given would be taken away. In fact, it has not been, nor has it been, that the fresh government is very afraid to take action that could give the PiS fuel to launch the communicative "returns poorness as for the first Tusk" – the question whether this will not change after the Trzask presidential elections won. fresh social programmes have even been launched, specified as "grandmother" or widow’s pension – although it may be doubtful whether, erstwhile the Polish welfare state has so powerfully leaned towards the seniors behind the Law and Justice, it is fair to proceed investing this peculiar group.
At the same time, it can be seen that the current government – even though KO is no longer the same organization as between 2007 and 2015 – inactive remains susceptible to the temptation of neoliberal populism, which best shows discussion on the wellness contribution for entrepreneurs or a dispute with the European Commission on covering civilian and legal contracts.
Following the first much-needed increases in the budget for the public sector and its staff, further investment in the public sector has not been undertaken. It is surely not entirely in the political government's will to seriously start talking about investment in the public sector as a flywheel for improvement and what kind of tax-contribution strategy it would fund fairly.
The request for acceleration
Today's polls indicate that erstwhile we chose the next Sejm tomorrow, the majority would most likely have a PiS-Confederation coalition. And if, at the latest after the presidential election, there is no acceleration, it could actually end in that scenario.
As shortly as the president changes, reforms should be placed on his desk as shortly as possible to heal the situation in the judiciary – as far as possible, without a constitutional reset – reforming the prosecution and public media.
The government must besides renew its social agreement until the next parliamentary elections with today's discouraged groups, whose extraordinary mobilization on October 15 due to the triumph – mainly with young women and the financially weaker mediate class of the public sector.
A new, formulated policy, not in contrast to the Law and Justice, is needed, but alternatively an educational, scientific, cultural and industrial policy. besides – and yesterday – actions capable at least of mitigating the bloating and never solved wellness and housing problems.
It will be hard for the government to give coherent answers in these areas due to the cordon nature of its coalition. It is besides not known whether, before the next election, they will begin to blow up its centrifugal tendencies erstwhile smaller parties consider that an alliance with KO pushes them under the threshold. It is not known whether after the presidential elections, if, as everything points out, they will end with a decisive defeat of Holownia, the process of partitioning Poland 2050 between KO and PSL will not begin. By strengthening the KO, it may besides make it hard for the democratic block to keep the majority in the next Sejm.
The Curse of Government in Interesting Times
However, the destabilisation of the global environment of Poland may be a key challenge. Despite the war in Ukraine and all global tensions, the first year of the coalition government ran in comparatively comfortable global conditions.
However, the arrangement of forces may shortly change rapidly not necessarily in favour of Poland. The U.S. President's office will shortly include Trump, we do not know how this will change the situation in Ukraine, what will be the policy of the fresh president towards NATO and China, whether he will not effort to drag Europe into a customs war with the latter. Signals from the economical environment are increasingly worrying.
The next year's elections in Germany are improbable to elect a government with the participation of the AfD, but it is clear that Europe is becoming an increasingly unstable political continent, which present is best shown by the parliamentary paralysis of France and Romania, where the first circular of presidential election of the pro-Russian right-wing populist has been cancelled by the pro-Russian right-wing populist, due to the interference of external actors in the encouraging disinformation in social media.
Against the background of this instability, we can see that the current government, with all its shortcomings, is simply a good thing. Especially in the light of alternatives. On the another hand, if you don't effort harder, if you don't start delivering more, you can fall victim to this instability, to the instability of the democratic strategy and to the unpredictable verdicts of the electorate.
