We were travelling across Poland by train the day after the country’s sensational parliamentary elections in autumn 2023. When news of the results came through, passengers in our compartment fell into each other’s arms, rejoicing as though a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders. Hard as it was to believe after eight years, the national populists of the Law and Justice party had been ousted from power on a record turnout of 75% of voters. We felt the potential of democracy to change things for the better as a physical sensation.
Less than two years have passed but this enthusiasm has disappeared without trace. The Law and Justice-backed candidate Karol Nawrocki won the presidential election run off in June with 50.89% of the vote, securing the admiration of Donald Trump in the process. Days before Nawrocki’s swearing in on Wednesday [6 August] a new poll suggested that almost half of voters would like the prime minister, Donald Tusk out. The ruling coalition is wobbling. Tusk’s liberal democratic government may turn out to be nothing more than an intermezzo, a pause between rightwing populist governments.
After more than a decade of living, in a global sense, with the new wave of populism, we can see a pattern of missed opportunities of which Poland is just one example. In countries ruled by new populists, voters often come to feel disappointment and anger. In recent years, liberal candidates, carried by a tide of opposition, have ousted the populists: before Tusk managed it in Poland there was Joe Biden in the US, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Zuzana Čaputová in Slovakia. The victories of these politicians seemed briefly like beacons of hope for the post-cold war liberal democratic consensus.
But rebuilding after populists vacate office can resemble a daily struggle in the political mud. A victorious election campaign is not the same as a definitive victory. The war against populists is a permanent one, and a global one, amplified by digital media.
Post-populist rule is all the more difficult because populist governments leave behind a legal minefield. In Poland, countless legal decisions and acts in force were intended to undermine liberal democratic institutions. Dismantling them constitutionally and restoring the rule of law takes time and energy. It also requires looking back to the past rather than focusing on the future as the new government addresses its predecessors’ mistakes. In Poland and Brazil, this has stifled any ambitions to offer an exciting roadmap for the years ahead. Inevitably, any initial euphoria is quickly followed by public frustration and the rise of another challenge from the rightwing populists.
Since the anti-communist Solidarity movement in the 1980s, Poland has been a crucial laboratory in the battle for democracy. After returning to power in 2023, Tusk faced a dilemma: should he completely distance himself from his predecessors’ agenda or flirt with their legacy? Tusk chose the second option. He maintained the populists’ programme of direct financial support for families with children. He continued with the construction of a mega transport hub, a flagship project for the previous government that he had previously attacked as wasteful. It is especially striking that he has failed to liberalise Poland’s abortion laws, which were tightened by the populists. Echoing the nationalists’ rhetoric about migration and defence of national borders has led to Poland reimposing checks at its borders with EU neighbours Germany and Lithuania, despite all three countries being in the Schengen area.
Letting the national populists set the political tone for him is driving Tusk’s failure. The defeat of his presidential candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski was followed by a collapse of support in the polls. The absence of an inspiring vision, or even a sense of what Tusk stands for, is painful to witness.
If parliamentary elections were held today, Poland’s rightwing populists would be emphatically returned to power, probably with an even more radical nationalist programme. Abroad, Tusk may be admired as a staunch defender of democracy. At home, he has become one of the most unpopular politicians in the country.
Call it the Gorbachev syndrome: beloved internationally, but reviled domestically. Tusk’s ratings slump can be blamed on a whole set of unfulfilled promises, poor messaging and a poor presidential campaign. He is also affected by the global tendency to reject establishment politicians. To many Polish voters, especially younger ones, Tusk, who has been active in Polish politics for more than 25 years and was prime minister from 2007 to 2014, seems like part of a tired old elite whose time has come to step aside.
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Safeguarding democracy requires something liberal democrats have so far lacked: an imaginative conception of what the future should look like. Here, Tusk and Lula disappoint, just as Čaputová and Biden did before them. The message is lacking, but the medium is challenging too. So far, rightwing populists are winning on the battleground of new and social media.
It is not the only example, but the Polish case clearly demonstrates the folly of fighting elections purely on the defensive. It is too little and too narrow. Liberal ambitions must extend further than preventing populists from coming to power or removing them from it.
Elections have to be understood as a chance to rebuild democracy, and to do so in tune with the new media environment. Without a forward-thinking approach, the liberal intermezzo will remain just that: a brief interval between acts in a longer populist play. Democrats must learn this lesson – contending with populism means not only confronting the past, but also offering a compelling vision for the future.
