Tusk’s Return Gives Hope

Professor Radosław Markowski, political scientist, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, talks to Witold Żygulski.

After six years in Brussels, Donald Tusk, long-

time 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 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

natural resources. For example, the hooligan policy of the authorities toward forests is simply a crime, it is stealing from their own people. This is the first time in history that international organizations have had to intervene to protect Polish nature from the pests of the Polish government.

However, it’s not that Tusk comes along and dominates the smaller opposition partners through his greed. They are consistently losing support all by themselves. Nowoczesna, which used to have up to 10 percent of supporters, today is spontaneously nonexistent, with 1, maybe 2 percent followers.

It is wise not to show that there are conflicts within the ranks of the Civic Coalition. I have been saying for many years, based on our research, that the PO has been living in sin for many years, leaning toward conservatism, believing that the Catholic Church is a value that should not be questioned. Meanwhile, the majority of Poles do not have conser-

prof. Radosław Markowski, sociologist and political scientist vative views, about 35-40 percent have liberal/cosmopolitan views, and there are also many left-wing supporters. These people are progressive, educated, open to the world. This is noticeable especially among young people. So, one can hope that all the opposition parties, but above all the PO, will make a slight turn toward this open-minded attitude, toward concern about universal values, about the common good, like, for example, our Planet as a whole.

What worries me in Tusk’s latest statements are his words that we should simply wait until the governing United Right finishes off themselves. I think this is a fundamental mistake. People who think that Law and Justice (PiS) is a political evil for Poland, and there are many of them, undoubtedly have to be supported in drawing attention to the situation, to all the scandals, the siphoning off of public money, corruption, clientelism and other pathologies on an unprecedented scale in Poland. Of course, to be fair: every government included people who tried to do something for themselves on the side, but today we are dealing with systematic robbing of the country, a system of kleptocracy, which Hungarian political scientist Balint Magyar recently described in great detail in his book Post-Communist Mafia State. The latest declarations of the PiS party and its leader Jarosław Kaczyński about fighting nepotism are a curiosity: we are dealing with a system created precisely for the purpose of siphoning off public money (including money coming from the plundering of Polish forests) and transferring it to people who will then pay the party back in some way. Or else, this money goes directly to the ruling party, through various channels. Anyone who refuels at the stations of PKN Orlen [fuel company under government control] should realize that at last one-fifth of what they pay for fuel or hot dogs will end up at the disposal of PiS. The fuel giant recently bought out an entire chain of regional newspapers [Polska Presse concern], which are now to become the propaganda tube of the PiS party, just like public television TVP [managed by a PiS politician and financed by the government]. Although I do admit that it might be impossible to match TVP with its low intellectual standard of cheap arguments, and embarrassing level of culture has not been seen for decades.

You spoke about large progressive circles in society, people with open minds; why is it, then, that the governing rightwing party does not actually lose support, maintaining its roughly 10-percent advantage over the opposition?

It is true, some 5-5.5 million people of Poland’s almost 31 eligible voters million are willing to vote for PiS. Who are they? The first group consists of people converted ideologically, those who are swayed by incessantly repeated nationalist slogans, obsessed with the idea that Poland is the civilization center of the world. Such a megalomaniac narrative suits some of this group. These are the same people who believe that Poles have always been victims, have never done any harm to Jews, Belarusians or Ukrainians, never collaborated with the Nazis, that these are things of which they can only be accused by enemy, evil propaganda.

The second group are people who want the state to take care of their lives. They are afraid of the market economy, entrepreneurship, responsibility; it is one of the manifestations of the “escape from freedom”. Most of them are elderly, pensioners or people just before retirement, most of them

with low social and cultural capital. A system of growing social spending suits them. Meanwhile, this is money sucked from hard-working Poles, enterprising people who work 16 or more hours a day. This money is taken from them and transferred, via the budget, to people - for all kind of reasons - absent from the labor market, who hardly contribute anything to the state coffers.

PiS attempts to convince Poles it is building a welfare state. That is a mockery; it is serves well their electorate, but moderately competent people familiar with the history of welfare states’ creation, e.g. in Scandinavia, know that the funds generated by high taxes taken from higher earners there did not go directly into the pockets of the poor, but into infrastructure, into building nurseries, kindergartens, creating jobs, roads, public transport. They were spent on everything that makes life better for everyone. That’s why we call it universal welfare state. Meanwhile, today’s social policy in Poland is a sheer political clientelism, corrupting part of the electorate. The result being that the poor receive “political” money, only to spend them on private healthcare as the public one malfunctions dramatically.

The existence of the third group of PiS party supporters results from the fact that we live in a country where the Catholic Church plays a direct political role. This worldwide - allegedly - religious corporation has its own interests, its own morally decadent leaders, it sees that the process of secularization is progressing, sees the beginning of the end of its domination. But it still fights fiercely to continue ruling Poles’ hearts and minds.

Words from the pulpit explain from morning till night that PiS is the best thing that can happen to people. PiS, in turn, gives the clergy impunity, allows them to do illegal business... we come full circle.

Let’s go back for a moment to Donald Tusk’s return: doesn’t it pose a threat to the PO itself because of the internal struggle for leadership?

I think that today Tusk should be friendlier, more conciliatory in his dealings with Rafał Trzaskowski [deputy chairman of the party and also mayor of Warsaw], who himself also has a lot of political catching up to do. It has been a year since he had a fantastic result in the presidential election, losing marginally to Andrzej Duda. Had it not been for the frenzied propaganda of public television and the bizarre voting results outside Poland, who knows how things might have turned out. Since then, however, Trzaskowski has hardly been visible, not turning his electoral success to his advantage as much as he could.

Coming back to the essence of the question, everything depends on Tusk’s attitude. If he tries to be a strong man again, someone eliminating all the competitors in his own camp instead of encouraging cooperation, it would be far-reaching political infantilism. However, I think that in all the years of his career in the European Union, when he had to negotiate with many political sides, the former Prime Minister has learned something incredibly important in politics: getting along at all costs. Of course, other, smaller parties should also follow this path. Otherwise, if the opposition arranges some kind of internal brawl again, the voters will not forgive them.

The biggest problem, Tusk’s biggest task - which also results from the polls - is to reach out to Szymon Hołownia [leader of the new political movement Poland 2050, which is now in third place in opinion polls, after the governing PiS party and the opposition PO]. Hołownia is disappointed today because initial successes in the polls promised him the position of the second political force in Poland. But if he and

Donald Tusk, Photo PAP

Tusk read the polls wisely, they must see that the electorates of both parties work synergistically. While the possible alliance of PO with the Polish People’s Party (PSL) or the Left will not have a big effect, in the case of Hołownia’s party both electorates add up without any problems. The two leaders should therefore join forces if they really want to remove the political pests from power.

Political theory has the term “minimum winning coalition.” It is not necessary to build 70- or 80-percent support for the government. Two or three parties are quite enough to get a good 50 percent or more and be able to govern. In Poland today, it might turn out that more parties will be needed for such a result. Besides the PO and Szymon Hołownia’s Poland 2050, this might be the PSL in some configuration with, for example, Jarosław Gowin’s Alliance [a group which recently left the PiS coalition government]. But the PSL’s political intuition seems to be getting worse lately, as clearly proven by them counting on Paweł Kukiz as a partner and valuable political figure. Gowin, on the other hand, although he deserves respect for not letting himself be maneuvered into some of PiS’s harmful ideas when his party was still a junior partner in the governing coalition, is by no means a sure ally; out of all the parties on the Polish political scene, he has only never been in an alliance with the left wing.

The Left, in turn, would be a very dangerous ally for the PO and Poland 2050. Some of its representatives sometimes declare views that could be a real Trojan horse for the democratic opposition.

What do you mean?

Adrian Zandberg [leader of the radical left-wing party Razem (Together)] is full of revolutionary fantasies about income redistribution, which are possible, yes, but only in such rich countries as Finland or Sweden. Ideas such as a guaranteed basic income, regardless of whether someone works or not, cannot be implemented in Poland, as the country simply cannot afford it. Transplanting such ideas to Poland is absurd. Of course, it must be clearly emphasized: social inequality is evil, especially unjust social inequality. It must be combated, but the pendulum should not swing the opposite way.

Robert Biedroń [leader of the left-wing Wiosna (Spring) party], in turn, seemed to be a progressive candidate in the presidential campaign, someone able to attract large numbers of supporters. However, due to his exceptionally poor, simplistic campaign, which did not even reach the supporters of the left, he received a little over 2 percent in the first round. This result is a total embarrassment, a disaster.

Today left-wing parties have, depending on the polls, support between 7 and 9 percent. At one time, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) [the largest of the left-wing groups in Poland] alone had 10 to 12 percent. Biedroń had his few percent and Zandberg about 3 percent. When these groups united before the elections, not only was there no synergy, no accumulation of votes, which should have ensured support of 20 percent or so, but the individual left-wing groups significantly reduced the number of their supporters.

First of all, the leftist narrative could have been presented effectively without any obsessive emphasis on hatred for the PO. Most of the left-wing electorate wants PiS ousted from power at any cost, and not the PO removed from the political scene. Politicians of the Left have apparently failed to understand this. As long as they distribute the blows equally between PiS and the PO, they will stop at their 6 to 8 percent. Forming a long-term coalition will also be impossible. They simply have to grow up.

The name “United Right” is rather outdated now; how can the ruling camp deal with the crisis in its own ranks and with the very probable, if not already inevitable, loss of the parliamentary majority?

The same way it has been doing for the last five years: blackmail, corrupting MPs, breaking off parliamentary sessions and pushing envelopes behind the scenes... Jarosław Kaczyński probably has a huge collection of files with dirt on many people... All of PiS’s major appointments are based on the same mechanism: Kaczyński wants posts everywhere to go to people who can be easily blackmailed and are totally dependent on him. The only time when Kaczyński met his match was the case of Marian Banaś [current president of the Supreme Audit Office (NIK)], who, despite the fact that the file on him probably contains a lot of blackmail material, did not give in. On the contrary, he is conducting a fierce counterattack with his own files from NIK resources.

What will happen now? The same as we witnessed a few weeks ago: back-room subterfuge in the parliament, the cancellation of votes unfavorable for PiS, corruption of individual members of parliament by, for example, the offer of lucrative positions in state-owned companies... The quality of Polish politics has deteriorated drastically in recent years, and this process will probably continue.

After winning an election, the ruling party has the right to implement any policies at their pleasure even if they seem inadequate to experts. Voters in democracy will most likely hold parties accountable during their next trip to the polling stations. But PiS is doing something else, incomparably worse: it has been violating procedures, changing the institutional rules of the game or invalidating them from the first day of its rule, from the moment when three judges were appointed to the Constitutional Tribunal who should not have been there.

Today when you read statements made by Lech Kaczyński [brother of the PiS leader, president of Poland, who died in a plane crash near Smolensk on April 10, 2010], a politician in whose lifetime PiS had not yet made such brazen moves violating the principles of a democratic procedures and the rule of law, you get the impression that these are insults to his twin brother.

The worst thing is that people, and I can even see this among my students, seem to be getting used to the fact that

AFTER WINNING AN ELECTION, THE RULING PARTY HAS THE RIGHT TO IMPLEMENT ANY POLICIES AT THEIR PLEASURE EVEN IF THEY SEEM INADEQUATE TO EXPERTS

they live in a country whose authorities do not care about the rule of law or other democratic principles and values. At the social consciousness level, it will take many years, probably decades, to undo this.

In your opinion, is the prospect of early parliamentary elections real today?

I am afraid that the dirty dealings of PiS politicians and people connected with them, and especially the fear of being held accountable, will make hundreds of international observers necessary during any early elections. This team does not want to relinquish power. What we saw in the Sejm proves that the PiS party is ready to cheat even in front of cameras, in front of a nationwide audience, in a hard to imagine brazen way. So we have good grounds to fear for the fairness of the next parliamentary elections, especially since foreign observers are usually a little dozy. Unless they see soldiers in the streets leading people to the polls, they think that everything is more or less OK.

Hardly anyone on the PiS side, especially those holding politically appointed high positions resulting in equally high incomes, who is interested in speeding up the elections. But I do not see any particular enthusiasm for such a solution among the opposition, either.

One more remark: in normal, democratic multi-party systems, minority governments are as rare as we tend to think. Approximately 1/3 of the post-World War II West European governments happened to be minority governments. Minority governments proved in many cases effective and politics under such conditions turns pretty substantive; a minority government has to seek allies for each of its legislative proposals, working hard on convincing people, presenting the opinions of experts, discussing the consequences of the proposed new legal regulations. However, for this you need political wisdom, not political slyness and cunning, qualities that, unfortunately, are personified in Poland by Jarosław Kaczyński. For the PiS leader, power is a kind of cure for his frustration, for his complexes stemming from the fact that he was nobody important in the democratic opposition of the 1970s and 1980s. While other heroes of that time were fighting for freedom and democracy, Kaczyński was sleeping comfortably in a villa in Warsaw’s Żoliborz district, which had been given to his father by the Polish United Workers’ Party [PZPR, the communist party that ruled until 1989].

Has the role of President Andrzej Duda changed in any way after the recent turbulent events on the Polish political scene?

That is non-issue. Remember that in the 2015 election, when Duda was first elected, polls showed a 70-percent lead for the PO’s Bronislaw Komorowski, the incumbent head of state. All the political parties fielded figureheads instead of political leaders. Duda as the PiS candidate was no exception. His task, in the best case, was to get to the second round by some miracle and lose to Komorowski not too embarrassingly. To everyone’s surprise, the opposite ensued. Duda was not meant to be president at all! But it came about, and it was an accident waiting to happen: the president does not have his own opinion, he does not have his own ideas; he is completely dependent on Kaczyński’s will.

Some optimists had hopes for the second term of office, when even presidents previously completely dependent on their political sovereign had emancipated themselves, started making independent decisions, their backbones hardened and they started thinking about what would be written about them in encyclopedias. In Andrzej Duda’s case, nothing like that has happened so far. He is an obedient bureaucrat following orders from Nowogrodzka Street [where PiS has its headquarters]. Frankly speaking, I don’t think I am ready to waste my time talking about him…

Szymon Hołownia, Photo PAP