Poland’s ruling populists have been given free rein in their mission to reshape the country after liberal hopes of taking the presidency were squelched in narrow defeat after a divisive campaign.
President-in-Office Andrzej Duda was elected to another five-year term as a family set of demographic divisions that developed in the vote. Poles under 50 and those living in larger towns and cities backed the liberal challenger, Rafał Trzaskowski, while older, rural voters supported Duda.
With almost every ballot counted on Monday, Duda, who was backed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and led a campaign with homophobic rhetoric, garnered 51.2% of the vote and Trzaskowski with 48.8%. The challenger conceded on Monday afternoon.
“Thank you also for the incredible energy we have managed to unleash together during these few weeks,” wrote Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, on Twitter. In a subsequent short speech, he congratulated Duda and expressed his hope that his second term would be different from the first.
Duda supporters celebrated what they saw as a clear mandate for PiS to continue on a path that has reduced poverty, but expressed concern that democracy is under threat. Critics and human rights groups expressed fear that Duda’s victory will fuel non-liberal trends not only at home but also within the EU.
During his time in office, PiS has clashed with Brussels over the rule of law and assaults on the judiciary, and on Tuesday the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee will vote on whether the EU should extend its continuing disciplinary procedure against Poland. The EU executive launched an investigation into the rule of law in Poland more than four and a half years ago, but the process has languished as EU member states are divided on how to respond.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who also clashed with Brussels, marked Duda’s re-election by posting on Facebook a photo of himself shaking hands with the Polish president, with graphics of a hand showing a “V” for the victory and a Polish flag. .
Trzaskowski campaigned vigorously, narrowing the gap in a race that Duda was expected to easily win before the original May vote was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In recent days there was a real feeling that the elections could go either way, and the result left Trzaskowski’s supporters deflated.
Had he won, Trzaskowski could have used the presidential veto to hamper much of PiS’s legislative agenda. Now, with the upcoming parliamentary elections until 2023 and PiS controlling most of the levers of power, the fear is that PiS will duplicate its strategy for at least the next three years.
A mission of electoral observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Monday that the vote had been well organized and that the security measures related to the pandemic had been properly applied, but expressed concern over the lack of impartiality on public television and on The Combative Nature of the Campaign, and in particular Duda’s rhetoric.
“We were concerned about cases of intolerant rhetoric of a homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic nature, particularly between the President’s campaign and public television,” said Thomas Boserup, the head of the monitoring mission. He personally criticized Duda for the use of homophobic rhetoric.
During the campaign, the stable of government-loyal media attacked Trzaskowski as an “extremist” and on several occasions alleged that he was backed by foreign shadow forces, or that he would take money from the Poles and disburse it for “Jewish interests” . The media also criticized him for his support for LGBT rights during his time as mayor. Trzaskowski said in the run-up to the vote that it was “now or never” to stop PiS, which has governed Poland since 2015.
While some commentators expressed optimism that so many young Poles had voted for the change, others warned that PiS could intensify its xenophobic rhetoric. “PiS sees the extreme nationalist right as a greater threat to its majority than liberals, and will want to send signals to these young nationalist voters,” said Wojciech Przybylski, a political analyst.
Bart Staszewski, an LGBT activist who confronted Duda during the campaign with photographs of LGBT teenagers who had taken their lives, wrote on Twitter that “there was no hope of improving the situation of minorities” in the country after the result.
Politicians around the world closely watched the race for clues as to what may or may not work in the fight against populists. In an unusual speech, Donald Trump welcomed Duda at the White House days before the vote and praised him for doing an “excellent job.”
Trzaskowski carried the hopes of liberals around the world, responding to a call by Barack Obama in the days leading up to the vote. “Encouraging so many, particularly young people, to mobilize for an open and inclusive Poland in the heart of the European Union,” Sophie in ‘t Veld, a liberal Dutch MEP, wrote on Twitter on Monday. She said it was “shameful” for a politician to have won an election in Europe in 2020 with “a homophobic hate campaign.”
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