In America (Trump) and in Europe there is a wave, which sometimes seems unstoppable, of nationalist populism. The recent elections in two German ‘landers’ (Bavaria and Hesse) and in Slovakia have increased concern and fear that populism could increase its strength in the 2024 European elections.
That is why the important defeat that illiberals or populists They have suffered in Sunday’s Polish elections, which for many analysts were the most relevant of the year. For two reasons. One, because another triumph of the extreme right of PiS (Law and Justice), who has governed since 2015, would have been a perhaps decisive step in Poland’s march toward authoritarianism. Two, because Poland is the country with the most weight of those that joined the EU in the great enlargement to the East and also the fifth European power after Germany, France, Italy and Spain. And the Kaczynski’s government was committed to an anti-European drift that threatened the cohesion of the EU. For example, his opposition to a minimum common response to the great challenge of immigration to which, together with Hungary, he has not stopped putting obstacles. And the illiberal drift against the independence of the judiciary was such that Brussels froze the aid of the 35 billion that corresponded to it from the post-pandemic regeneration fund.
Furthermore, the internal Polish conflict was an open war between the extreme right of Law and Justice (from the same group as Vox in the European Parliament), which used all the means of the State in its favor, and the liberal (and associated with the EPP) Civic Coalition, by Donald TuskPrime Minister from 2007 to 2014 and President of the European Council from 2015 to 2019, to whom public television demonized as unpatriotic and puppet of Brussels and Berlin. A war by far-right populists, strong in the most backward rural areas, and the liberal and pro-European center-right, dominant in Warsaw and in the cities. The extreme right wanting to liquidate the liberal right?
And the Poles in the elections with the highest participation in their short democratic history (74% against 63% in 1989, those of the defeat of communism) have mobilized to prevent the illiberal retreat and the growing divorce with the other EU countries. Although PiS remains the first party (35.4% of the votes and 194 deputies) it has fallen far short of the absolute majority of 231 to which it aspired, while the Tusk Civic Coalition (31% and 157 deputies), plus their other centrist allies (14.4% and 65 seats) and the left (8.6% and 26 deputies), they surpass, with 54% and 248 deputies, the absolute majority in both votes and seats. And the Confederation, an even more reactionary party, with only 7.2% and 18 deputies, cannot change the equation.
The war in Warsaw has been that of a far-right party (like Vox, but installed in power) against the liberal and pro-European center-right. Not the fight between right and left. Spain is not Poland but it is not advisable to ignore what happens there either
The defeat of populism, which the Government had and believed to be the winner, has been clear. But Tusk won’t have it easy. President Andzrej Duda, of the PiS, has a mandate until 2025 and can veto laws, and Kaczynski also dominates the Constitutional Court. And PiS will have the first mandate to form a government that is expected to fail, so Tusk will not be sworn in until December or January. Furthermore, the winning coalition is not a united bloc but a set of different parties.
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But the key is that 54% of Poles voted against populism and in favor of freedoms (women have mobilized a lot due to fear of more limitations on abortion) and that Poland will no longer be a country that, together with Hungary, boycotts the always laborious progress of the EU.
Spanish dimension. A, Núñez Feijóo must correct some of his clichés. In democracies the Government is not automatically that of the list with the most votes, but rather that of the one that obtains the most parliamentary support. But Spain is not Poland and it remains to be seen if Sánchez goes from his 121 to 178 (Puigdemont’s included) that he needs to be invested. Two, Sánchez and Feijóo must not ignore that in Warsaw, a European capital, the current great schism is not between the left and the right, but that of reactionary populism (Vox, but dominating the State) and democrats and liberals of all kinds . Spain is not Poland (much better), but it is not worth losing sight of it either.