After a brutal campaign, Poland gets ready to vote
The government has a good chance of losing power, but the outcome is uncertain
ELBLAG, A GRITTY port where the air stings from factory soot, is not exactly full of latte-sipping cosmopolitans. In Poland’s bitterly divided politics, urban voters mostly back liberals; in Elblag in 2019 the ruling hard-right Law and Justice (PiS) party came first. Yet when Donald Tusk, the centrist running to unseat PiS, arrived for a rally on September 28th, the hall was jammed. For years, he cried, PiS had packed Poland’s courts and bickered with the EU. Mr Tusk (pictured), who served as prime minister from 2007-14 and then as president of the European Council, promised to end all that: “Europe is freedom, the rule of law, the fight against corruption.” PiS was trying to brainwash Poles, he said, just as the communists and Nazis had.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Prelude to a brawl”
Europe October 7th 2023
- After a brutal campaign, Poland gets ready to vote
- Slovakia gives pro-Russian populist nationalism another win
- Ukraine prepares for winter again as Russia targets its power grid
- Spain’s Socialists are struggling to recover power
- What should Ireland’s government do with a huge budget surplus?
- Europe is stuck in a need-hate relationship with migrants
From the October 7th 2023 edition
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