POLITICS AND SOCIETY
TUSK’S RETURN GIVES HOPE Professor Radosław Markowski, political scientist, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, talks to Witold Żygulski.
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fter six years in Brussels, Donald Tusk, longtime prime minister and the founder and former leader of the now opposition Civic Platform (PO), has returned to Poland, once again taking the reins of the party. What significance does this have for the Polish political scene? Enormous significance. We are talking about a former head of government, a politician who led Poland through the worst crisis in recent years, in 2008. The ridicule surrounding the term “Green Island” [the symbol of the place least affected by the economic collapse] back then, today can be considered completely unfounded; Poland was reporting 1.7-percent economic growth while the rest of Europe was usually between minus 5 and minus 11 percent. So this is the comeback of someone who, first of all, was a very effective prime minister for a very long time and, secondly, later held several very important positions in European Union structures. In politics, you cannot underestimate someone who phones the mighty of this world as if they were his closest acquaintances or friends. What is more, he speaks to them fluently in German or English. In short: an important figure is returning to the Polish political scene. Donald Tusk also has the advantage that, unlike Borys Budka or any of the previous leaders of the PO, he can convince his audience that if he promises to do something, he will do it. It is about - what we call in political science - competence. After Tusk’s return, it is easy to see that there has been a major shift in the polls registering support for political parties. Support for the opposition PO has jumped, depending on the polls, between a few and a dozen or so percentage The Warsaw Voice
points, which means it has practically doubled or increased by two-thirds. Something really important has happened. Won’t the new PO under the leadership of the old Tusk simply dominate the opposition, whose parties are trying to cooperate on key issues within the framework of the Civic Coalition? It will dominate, there is no doubt about that. Of course, there will still be such groups as the one represented by Barbara Nowacka, a very valuable politician of the left, or the Greens, who somehow don’t manage to accomplish anything even though they should have probably double-digit support today because of what the government is doing with
THE MAJORITY OF POLES DO NOT HAVE CONSERVATIVE VIEWS, ABOUT 35-40 PERCENT HAVE LIBERAL/COSMOPOLITAN VIEWS, AND THERE ARE ALSO MANY LEFT-WING SUPPORTERS Autumn 2021
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