Poland’s governing coalition promised after winning the parliamentary election three years ago that it would not use the methods of its predecessors in the right-wing PiS party. The previous government was accused of taking control of the judiciary, disregarding legal limits and directing inflammatory rhetoric at political opponents and neighboring countries, particularly Germany.
That pledge came with a complication: a PiS-affiliated president made a legally straightforward effort to depoliticize Poland’s highest courts impossible. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government avoided radical measures and instead hoped its candidate would win the 2025 presidential election. That strategy failed when PiS candidate Karol Nawrocki won. One factor in his victory, the article argues, was that some governing-party supporters stayed home, disappointed by the lack of action.
The government’s decision to break the continuing institutional deadlock and take the Constitutional Court out of PiS’s hands, a year before the next parliamentary election, has drawn well-founded criticism, including from opponents of PiS. But the article says the impasse remains: Poland’s right would also have to be willing to compromise, and Nawrocki’s forceful response indicates it is not. In that situation, the alternative to Tusk’s current approach would have been surrender.
Sources: FAZ.