Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Combatting Complacency: The May 2015 Polish Presidential Elections

Combatting Complacency: The May 2015 Polish Presidential Elections

Combatting Complacency: The May 2015 Polish Presidential Elections            

By: Otto Kienitz (FPRI Research Assistant, Project on Democratic Transitions)

 

In June of 2014 coffee tables across North America and Europe sported a new Economist Magazine cover with a yellow banner across the top declaring “Poland’s Golden Age.” The article marveled over Poland’s success: it weathered the financial crisis without a recession, embraced its geopolitical potential as a conduit between Germany and Russia, and preformed remarkably well at “combating complacency” under the tutelage of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal-conservative Civic Platform (PO).[1] Now one year later, looking back over the May 2015 presidential elections that swept Andrzej Duda of the Law and Justice Party to power over the incumbent President Bronislaw Komorowski, the observer might be mystified by the results. How did the harbingers of “Poland’s Golden Age” lose the Presidency to a “radical” national-conservative lawyer with help from a strong third party showing of a former rock star?[2] The answers may not speak definitively towards a dramatic shift in Polish politics come the Parliamentary elections in October, but the unanticipated results of the May presidential elections affirm a new wave of Poles who have redefined what “combating complacency” means to a generation coming to age a quarter-century after the collapse of communism.

Poland uses a double-ballot runoff electoral system to select a president, meaning that if no candidate wins 50 percent of the popular vote, the large pool of candidates is trimmed down to the two highest polling candidates before the deciding round of ballots is cast.[3] The first round of the 2015 elections saw eleven candidates, none more likely to rise to the top than the Civic Platform (PO) incumbent Mr. Bronislaw Komorowski. Before the first round election on May 10th, Mr. Komorowski polled around 40 percent, while the main opposition candidate, Mr. Andrzej Duda of the Law and Justice party (PiS), sat below 30 percent.[4] Other challengers included Ms. Magdalena Ogorek of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), Mr. Pawel Kukiz (a stand-lone rock singer determined to shake up the Polish electoral system), and the eccentric libertarian Mr. Janusz Korwin-Mikke who represented his newly renovated Congress of the Right party under his own acronymic name KORWiN (Coalition for the Restoration of Freedom and Hope to the Republic).[5] The field was not unusual for a Polish presidential race – ten candidates competed in the first round of 2010 – but the dip in the incumbent’s popularity and the stunning results of Mr. Kukiz’s independent campaign proved 2015 to be a markedly different election year.

After 49 percent of voters went to the polls for the first round election on May 10th, Mr. Duda beat Mr. Komorowski by a narrow margin (34.76 percent against 33.77 percent) to force a second round run-off, a fact that was bolstered by the dramatic impact of the three most popular ‘independent’ alternatives.[6] Ms. Ogorek, Mr. Kukiz, and Mr. Korwin-Mikke stole a quarter of the vote between them, with Mr. Kukiz winning over 20 percent of the votes by himself – a testament to the “huge dissatisfaction and outrage in Polish society and a strong anti-establishment feeling among the voters.”[7] Mr. Kukiz is a political newcomer who ran without party support, labeling himself as “‘a right-winger with a left-wing heart.’”[8] His populism stems from his background as a rock singer and self-proclaimed national patriot whose “anti-system credentials” include a critique of the electoral system ushered in by the 1989 round table agreement. He has vocally renounced the elite networks that navigated through Poland’s pacted transition and seem to have dominated politics and the economy ever since.[9] In other words, Mr. Kukiz is actively decrying a “cartel of hierarchical political parties” that has manipulated Poland’s proportional electoral system to “enrich itself and entrench its power.”[10] His anti-establishment appeal and his plan to introduce single member constituencies to bypass the entrenchment of Poland’s elite-driven political parties resonated across the spectrum of Polish voters. According to the data accrued by Aleks Szczerbiak at the University of Sussex, Mr. Kukiz won “the largest share of the vote among students (40.3 percent) and younger voters (41.4 percent, compared with only 3.8 percent among the over-60s).”[11] His independent campaign clearly attracted the frustrations of young Poles disenchanted by the “apparent ‘glass ceiling’ of vested interests and corrupt networks stifling their opportunities,” and he captured the hearts and minds of over 40 percent of voters who had not cast a ballot in the previous presidential or parliamentary elections.[12] His impact resonated beyond May 10th and into the second round elections on May 24th, and Mr. Kukiz has publicly stated that he will create a new political party for the upcoming parliamentary elections in October of 2015.

Polish presidential election, 2015 – results of the I round (10 May 2015) by counties

Map Courtesy of Robert Wielgórski

On May 24th, just over 55 percent of the Polish electorate returned to the polls to cast their final ballot for the presidency.[13] Mr. Andrzej Duda, the 43 year old lawyer of the conservative Law and Justice party, won 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent over the incumbent Mr. Komorowski.[14] The impact of Mr. Kukiz’s showing on the 10th of May was important to the course of the election. After the first round polling, the sitting president was flustered by the popularity of Mr. Kukiz’s anti-system rhetoric, and “tried to court his supporters by promising a referendum on the issue [switching the electoral system from party lists to single-member districts].”[15] The desperate political appeal backfired, and the incumbent’s attempts to frame the election “as a fight between a ‘rational’ (pro-European, democratic, liberal) and a ‘radical’ (anti-system, anti-European, anti-Enlightenment) Poland” was ultimately unsuccessful. A generational divide proved that young Polish voters were unconcerned by the Law and Justice party’s “Orban-style rule” in government from 2005 to 2007 and were ready to ‘combat the complacency’ of the established political hierarchies of the 1989 transition.[16] Furthermore, 59 percent of Mr. Kukiz’s supporters turned out to back Mr. Duda’s PiS.[17] The Polish electorate seems not only tired of eight years of Civic Platform governance, but appears frustrated by mounting unemployment, poor public health services, and a gap between “golden age” expectations and the darkening reality of the present.[18]

The synchronicity between Mr. Kukiz’s appeal and the election of Mr. Duda will be determined in this autumn’s parliamentary elections, when Mr. Kukiz’s new party will seek to form a coalition with the PiS to oust the PO, but “[n]either Duda nor Kukiz have a programme for Poland.”[19] It is clear that the ramifications of the parliamentary elections are paramount. If Mr. Duda can consolidate his victory with a parliamentary majority coalition, he will certainly be given a mandate for more assertive measures at home and abroad. At home, Mr. Duda has made it clear that he “wants to follow [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban’s path on economic policy” and take steps to reverse Poland’s neoliberal reforms toward statist economic policies including taxing foreign banks and slowing Poland’s ascension into the Eurozone.[20] Abroad, Mr. Duda’s more aggressive (and Eurosceptic) foreign policy aspirations turn east (away from Germany and France) and envision Poland as the “regional leader… to adopt a more robust response to Russian expansionism,” a role that Poland could seek to affirm at the NATO summit in Warsaw planned for the summer of 2016.[21] However, if the parliament remains in the hands of the Civic Platform, cohabitual gridlock threatens to paralyze Poland and at least mire its course in the European Union and NATO, let alone the world. Some might see this prospective polarization as political paralysis while others relish the competitive nature of Poland’s thriving political environment. So is the nature of contestation. So is the nature of democracy.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Appel, Hilary and Mitchell A. Orenstein. “Duda’s Economic Populism.” Council on Foreign Affairs. June 1, 2015.

 

Buras, Piotr. “President Duda: What Happened in Poland?” European Council on Foreign Relations. May 25, 2015.

 

Chapman, Annabelle. “Don’t Bring a Dove to a Polish Hawk Fight.” Foreign Policy. May 9, 2015.

 

The Economist. “Poland’s Second Golden Age: Europe’s Unlikely Star.” The Economist. June 28, 2014.

 

The Economist. “Poland’s Presidential Election: The Harbinger.” The Economist. May 9, 2015.

 

The Economist. “Poland’s Presidential Election: Swinging Right.” The Economist. May 25, 2015.

 

The Economist. “Poland’s New President: Youthful Conservatism.” The Economist. May 30, 2015.

 

Kornai, János. “Hungary’s U-Turn: Retreating From Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 3. June, 2015.

 

Linz, Juan J., and Alfred C. Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

 

Magone, José M.  Routledge Handbook of European Politics. Oxon: Routledge, 2015.

 

Radio Poland. “Maverick MEP Korwin-Mikke Launches New Party.” Radio Poland. January 23, 2015.

 

Sputnik International. “Voter Turnout in Poland Presidential Election Tops 40 Percent.” Sputnik International. May 24, 2015.

 

Sobczyk, Martin M. “Andrzej Duda Declared Winner of Poland’s Presidential Election.” Wall Street Journal. May 25, 2015.

 

Szczerbiak, Aleks. “What Does Pawel Kukiz’s Election Success Mean for Polish Politics?” London School of Economics: European Politics and Policy Blog. May 14, 2015.

 

Szczerbiak, Aleks. “What Does Andrzej Duda’s Victory Mean for Europe?” The Polish Politics Blog. June 8, 2015.

 

Transparency International. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2014.” [https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014]

 

[1] The Economist. “Poland’s Second Golden Age: Europe’s Unlikely Star.” The Economist. June 28, 2014.

[2] Piotr Buras. “President Duda: What Happened in Poland?” European Council on Foreign Relations. May 25, 2015.

[3] José M. Magone. Routledge Handbook of European Politics. (Oxon: Routledge, 2015), 305.

[4] The Economist. “Poland’s Presidential Election: The Harbinger.” The Economist. May 9, 2015.

[5] Radio Poland. “Maverick MEP Korwin-Mikke Launches New Party.” Radio Poland. January 23, 2015.

[6] Sputnik International. “Voter Turnout in Poland Presidential Election Tops 40 Percent.” Sputnik International. May 24, 2015.

[7] Piotr Buras. “President Duda: What Happened in Poland?” European Council on Foreign Relations. May 25, 2015.

[8] Aleks Szczerbiak. “What Does Pawel Kukiz’s Election Success Mean for Polish Politics?” London School of Economics: European Politics and Policy Blog. May 14, 2015.

[9] Juan J. Linz and Alfred C. Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

[10] Aleks Szczerbiak. “What Does Pawel Kukiz’s Election Success Mean for Polish Politics?” London School of Economics: European Politics and Policy Blog. May 14, 2015.

[11] Aleks Szczerbiak. “What Does Pawel Kukiz’s Election Success Mean for Polish Politics?” London School of Economics: European Politics and Policy Blog. May 14, 2015.

[12] Ibid. These claims are somewhat unfounded as Poland has the 35th best score on Transparency International’s Corruption Index, actually improving over the last two years and representing the most promising hallmark in eastern and central Europe. However, a Transparency International Report from July 2012 warned of increasing corruption risks in the post-communist institutions of the Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), especially in the business sector.

https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results
https://www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/20120726_post_communist_institutions_failing_to_stop_corruption

[13] Martin M. Sobczyk. “Andrzej Duda Declared Winner of Poland’s Presidential Election.” Wall Street Journal. May 25, 2015.

[14] The Economist. “Poland’s New President: Youthful Conservatism.” The Economist. May 30, 2015.

[15] The Economist. “Poland’s Presidential Election: Swinging Right.” The Economist. May 25, 2015.

[16] Aleks Szczerbiak. “What Does Andrzej Duda’s Victory Mean for Europe?” The Polish Politics Blog. June 8, 2015.

“Orbán -style rule” refers to the authoritarian tendencies of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in power since 2010. His regime has come under criticism for curtailing civil liberties, harassing the media, and debilitating the power of the judiciary.

See more in: János Kornai. “Hungary’s U-Turn: Retreating From Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 3. June, 2015.

[17] Piotr Buras. “President Duda: What Happened in Poland?” European Council on Foreign Relations. May 25, 2015.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Hilary Appel and Mitchell A. Orenstein. “Duda’s Economic Populism.” Council on Foreign Affairs. June 1, 2015.

[21] Annabelle Chapman. “Don’t Bring a Dove to a Polish Hawk Fight.” Foreign Policy. May 9, 2015.