THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF POLAND? - June 28, 2009

Here is a short overview of the most probable presidential hopefuls in the forthcoming presidential elections in Poland in 2010. Although an official battle has not yet begun, many of the prospective candidates are positioning themselves to run for the office next year.

DONALD TUSK

A moderate conservative Prime Minister of Poland. Nobody from his surrounding denies that he will run in 2010. He is presently the most popular politician in the country and his Civic Platform party (PO) got over 44% of the votes in the recent elections to the European Parliament. Tusk is a master of public relations and works hard to maintain his media image of a reasonable statesman. All recent polls project his victory over any other possible candidate. Can anything stop him? Yes, and that could be the global economic crisis. Although Poland’s economy is among the last two economies in Europe, which are still growing (the other one is Cyprus), it is already known that the crisis will hit the country later this year. The economists predict that Poland will experience its first recession in the fall. Tusk’s Minister of Finance, Jacek Rostowski, already mentioned the possibility of growing unemployment and the necessity of raising taxes to prevent a rapidly increasing budget deficit. Simply put, Tusk’s victory next year will pretty much depend on how he copes with the menacing economic slowdown. Ironically, the one who may help him in that could be his opponent, the current President Lech Kaczynski. If Lech Kaczynski vetoes any of the legislation of the Civic Platform aiming at alleviating the consequences of the crisis, it will be extremely easy to blame the President, not the government, for the high unemployment and recession. And it is probable that President Kaczynski would veto such legislation because in the past he was vetoing the majority of Tusk’s leading legislative proposals (e.g. the privatization of public hospitals).

LECH KACZYNSKI

He is the President of Poland and a far right conservative. His negative electorate is even higher than that of Hillary Clinton’s. So if Hillary couldn’t pull it out then it seems unlikely that he can. Nevertheless, Kaczynski’s strength has been his conduct of foreign policy. He stood up to the Kremlin during Russia’s last year’s invasion of Georgia and although some foreign policy experts criticized him for such a harsh anti-Russian stance, it resonated well with the Polish society. The polls have been showing that the Poles regard Russia as the greatest threat to Poland’s existence and sovereignty. In terms of 2010 elections, it means that any future aggressive action by Russia against any of its neighbors, especially Georgia (something that many international experts predict could happen very soon), may boost Kaczynski’s chances of being reelected. Other than that, Kaczynski is a poor communicator and has had repeated problems with maintaining his good image in the media. Theoretically, Kaczynski could win only under two conditions: if he does not veto any forthcoming governmental legislation to combat the economic crisis (letting the government take the full responsibility for it) and if he carefully learns the lessons of the U.S. presidential election of 1948, in which Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey, despite tailing him in the polls. Truman was in a similar strategic situation that Kaczynski is in today, while the political scene in Poland these days remotely resembles that of the U.S. in 1948. Can Kaczynski pull it out?

ZBIGNIEW ZIOBRO

He is a young member of the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), who did tremendously well in the recent elections to the European Parliament on June 7 (although he does not speak English yet). He is a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, known for several controversial initiatives, which gained him popular support but alienated in the community of justice system. He has been indirectly challenging the Kaczynski brothers for the leadership in the party and is generally more favored by the PiS’s sympathizers to be their candidate in 2010. Nevertheless, Ziobro’s well performance in the number of recent elections may be more indicative of voters’ expectations for changes on the political scene, rather than his true strengths as a politician. Additionally, Ziobro is in a pretty inconvenient situation right now. If he does not openly challenge the Kaczynski twins and run for the President next year, he may lose that opportunity for a long time. Assuming that Donald Tusk wins the election in 2010, it is more likely than not that Tusk would serve two full terms, creating another meaningful opportunity for Ziobro only in 2020. By that time, however, the Polish political scene could be greatly transformed and Ziobro would no longer be a factor of change and freshness in the national politics. As of now, his political future depends on whether he can create, in the next few months, his own political machine (not necessarily a new party), independent of that of the Kaczynski brothers and whether he can be skillful enough in using it to his advantage. As a matter of fact, Obama created his own political machine from scratch within a couple of months only, but can Ziobro do a similar thing in Poland? Let’s wait and see. Presently, though, it seems more likely that he would be outmaneuvered by the Kaczynski twins.

DARIUSZ ROSATI

Rosati seems to be the best candidate that the liberals can nominate for the next year election. Rosati is a former Foreign Minister and a professor of economics. He was a visiting lecturer at the Princeton University in the past and most recently served as a member of the European Parliament. Former President Aleksander Kwasniewski mentioned Rosati as a possible candidate of the left-wing political groups. Rosati’s strength is that he can be perceived by many voters as an outsider, although he has been active in the politics for a while already. He is also not officially associated with the post-communist SLD party, which recently loses election after election. Additionally, Rosati’s broad economic expertise may become appealing to the voters in the time of crisis. Nevertheless, he has several weaknesses which will most likely prevent him from winning. He is a realist in foreign policy and rejects the notion that Poland’s bad historic experiences should play important role in relations with Germany and Russia. As a result, he would be unable to gain broader support of more conservative voters, who seem to be perceptive to anti-Russian and anti-German slogans. Rosati can be the biggest threat to Donald Tusk as Tusk tries to appeal to the center-left voters as well. Theoretically, the candidacy of Rosati can strengthen Kaczynski’s chances, however only to a limited extent.

This concludes the first overview of potential hopefuls in the forthcoming presidential elections in Poland in 2010. There will be more analysis and comments about those elections coming in the next few months. Stay tuned.   

Sebastian Aulich