The presidential run is starting beautiful lazy for now. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a look at respective phenomena or political events of the last weeks associated with the election race. They may constitute a preconfiguration of what will happen in a fewer months.
This is truly going to be an crucial election.
If Europe is serious about its dreams of strategical autonomy, and if it is omitted from Trump-Putin's talks about peace in Ukraine, it will encourage the countries of the Old Continent to take the initiative, then we have a final conflict with the alt-right movements. Either the liberal power elite will accept their existence and effort to co-opt them, or declare war on them. From this point of view, Donald Tusk's words about "a fighting democracy" appear not only as a peculiarly ambitious intellectual thought to exercise power, but as a preview of what political direction the designers of ultraliberal order have taken – to usage the John grey nomenclature here.
Donald Trump's triumph accelerated many political processes, including those concerning alt-right. Therefore, Brussels is considering slowing down the green transition and Berlin is exacerbating migration policy. This is investigating the first scenario, which is co-optation and allowing "healthy reason" movements to participate in power. Another script will most likely be to effort to legalize or to make it procedural to make it harder to run for office, which is being tested by Paris in the case of Marine Le Pen.
And although ultraliberals guarantee that they are in the law, they themselves apply methods that violate the spirit of laws or democratic order, declaring explicitly that any political forces have no right to win elections.
If you look at the elections in Poland from this perspective, it is definitely a advanced stake. Winning a policy related to Donald Tuski, or Rafał Trzaskowski, seriously threatens our freedoms. It is, of course, hard to say with a 100 percent certainty, but if anything threatens the stableness of the strategy today, there is no lingering for government policy. From this point of view, the choice of policy from a different political option than the PO will at least guarantee that, as a president independent of the ruling arrangement, he will look to power at his hands. And vetoed any of her ideas.
That is why these elections are very important, unless in fact the most crucial in at least the last fewer years. I realize that the commentariat has for years assured us that all closest election is the most crucial one, but it is worth realizing that Donald Tusk and his sidekicks actually do not take prisoners in confrontation with the Law and Justice, reject any legal order, and by utilizing anti-Script rhetoric they are able to justify virtually everything. Even the establishment of the law at press conferences, to which the Law and Justice Government – despite its tenacity in the demolition of the state – did not go far.
Weakness of the main candidates
Let's not hide that the 2025 presidential election is typical Proxy war. In fact, erstwhile again, Tusk and Kaczyński are fighting each other, exposing their soldiers to the battlefield, respectively: Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki. And this – unfortunately – can be seen, after all, both candidates barely convince the voters.
Trzaskowski has been focusing for respective weeks on the tedious and – as it seems – hopeless task of convincing Poles that he is not an ultraliberal doctrineist, green-tailed obsessionist or anti-ecclesiastical fury. Is it truly the same Rafał, who, just a fewer months ago, demanded the removal of crosses in buildings belonging to the Warsaw Magistrate – 1 can ask ironically. Unfortunately, yes, and it's hard to forget. Therefore, attempts to mitigate this image are rather clumsy.
In addition, presenting himself almost as a typical of the progressive wing of the All-Polish Youth, Trzaskowski besides loses in his electorate, a thirsty candidate of modern, gay couples, legalizing abortion and rejecting any pompous patriotic slogans.
Karol Nawrocki, who in turn has been working for respective weeks in sweat to convince himself of the electorate of PiS, has a akin problem. And, so far, it's not besides effective. He is inactive incapable to get close to 30% support in the polls, even though in January interviews he argued that he was a extremist opponent of abortion and homosexual unions and would never light a Khanukka in the Presidential Palace. I realize that the staff is most likely counting on a second circular and mobilisation of the voices of Sławomir Mentzen, Krzysztof Stanowski or Grzegorz Braun against the PO candidate, but specified calculation may prove to be a trap. If Nawrocki does not decision forward, demonstrating his appetites for a large score in the first round, it will be hard for him to rise the enthusiasm of the opponents of Trzaskowski in the second edition of the competition.
In conclusion, both candidates came from what could be expected, namely inability to take the initiative. They are not natural political leaders, but at most ambitious officials, who are just being transformed into well-oiled organization PR machines in presidential candidates.
Oversupply of right-wing candidates?
Sławomir Mentzen, Krzysztof Stanowski, Grzegorz Braun, Marek Jakubiak and Artur Bartoszewicz are associated with the right in these elections. Each of these candidates fights for votes alternatively conservative voters, although of course this conservatism has different faces. However, without going into detail, it is worth noting that public opinion surveys rather clearly indicate that Poles – as it was utilized to say not very elegantly – "turn to the right".
Not only does Euroscepticism grow stronger in us – its signs are barely visible in the polls, but discontent with the subsequent fiscal burdens for which the EU institutions are liable is increasing – we are besides increasingly reluctant to be mad at around the time and to interfere with the economy. The second is likely to reflect the belief that the little states, the more money in our pockets. After all, the biggest concern of Poles is the possible of losing security, connected not only with the war going on behind our east border, but besides with surviving matters.
These fears of Poles are, of course, an excellent subsoil for what is called the "revolution of common sense". A spokesperson for specified a case may be individual who opposes the established order, who can easy explain even the most complex matter, ridicule absurdities, and propose prescriptions for any problem that is “so apparent that it is unusual that it has not yet been implemented”.
For now, Sławomir Mentzen is definitely leading this group of politicians. But keep in head that we inactive have weeks to finish the election marathon, many of which can happen. It is adequate to remind you that 3 months before the Confederate parliamentary elections, they reached the polling peaks, taking 3rd place on the polling podium.
Need for a visionary
Donald Tusk erstwhile said that erstwhile he hears individual having a vision, he immediately sends him to a psychiatrist. In the first decade of the 21st century, specified words may have generated enthusiasm. Poles were tired of the fever of transformational reforms, constantly repeating that one more time something must be sacrificed in the name of a better future.
Today, however, times are somewhat different. Today, the Prime Minister of the Government is simply a man who would most gladly prescribe all work for governing Brussels, and in competition with him becomes a organization leader, panicking at the thought that anyone can at least in 1 word upset our American allies. A large example of the mentality of our politicians is the communicative described by Łukasz Jasina in the book “The Last Stage”. Jasina, as a spokesperson for the MFA at Minister Zbigniew Raua before gathering with the Iranian authorities, utilized the expression “Iranian friends”. In consequence to these words, president Jarosław Kaczyński called the head of the Ministry of abroad Affairs, reminding him that specified words jeopardise relations with Americans.
Just to be clear: in a akin situation I can besides imagine Donald Tusk. reasoning about the categories of absolute submission is an immanent characteristic of Polish politicians who have no thought of any sovereign abroad policy of Poland. It's 1 thing to be constrained by the arrangement of forces. But that we put on ourselves in this respect is simply a different matter. Political governance is not flooded with concrete. Within it are possible certain moves and games that can be conducted even with hegemon, if you have the right arguments, imagination and, of course, a small courage.
Perhaps breaking the harmful duopol for Poland will be 1 of the effects of this presidential campaign. Since 2010, I believe that these elections are more of a spectacle than a real fight for power, but nevertheless it seems – as above – that this time, although the quality of candidates does not necessarily add up, the game is at a advanced stake. So possibly it is worth looking at those candidates who hope to break the harmful stalemate in Polish politics?
What will become “gamechanger”?
Campaigns usually have any turning points. For example, there were 2 specified moments in 2020. The first, erstwhile the PO candidate for president and the unsuccessful Margaret Kidawa-Błońska was replaced by the attractive electorate Rafał Trzaskowski; the second, erstwhile the same Trzaskowski refused to debate with President-in-Office Andrzej Duda, which indicates a lot, did not let him to catch up with his competitor.
What will happen in this presidential campaign? As said, safety issues are crucial for Poles. And this is an highly hard subject for politicians. Otherwise Poles saw the function of our country in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict 3 years ago, and otherwise today. At the time, fewer were afraid by the words of PiS president Jarosław Kaczyński about the peace mission in our neighbour with the participation of Polish troops. Currently, fewer people feel like seeing Polish soldiers marching through Ukraine.
It's easy to make a mistake in campaigns. The most common is the breakdown of logical cohesion between the election communicative and the real decisions or words spoken by the candidate. Tusk assures that there is no mention of the participation of Polish troops in a possible European mission in Ukraine, but only a document, a shorthand or a non-compulsive message from 1 of the ministers denying this position and there will be an immediate failure of assurance in the government, which will translate into a decline in the support of Trzaskovsky.
Similarly, in the case of Karol Nawrocki – if president Andrzej Duda takes the position that it is worth considering the proposal of Poland's participation in the European mission, it will hit the PiS candidate strongly.
What else will happen in the coming months? Donald Trump's choice made past go back on track. And possibly this acceleration will be the spice that will make the presidential run a small more digestible than before.
Tomasz Figura
