Poland’s PiS party (prawo i sprawiediwosc=law and justice) in power since 2015 is worried. In the recent presidential elections its candidate, the incumbent President Andrzej Duda, failed to win 50% of the voting turnout. He is doomed to meet his closest rival, the liberal and Europhilic mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski. in a second round of elections on July 12.
PiS’s coming to power in the autumn of 2015 was not altogether unexpected. The business friendly PO (ptarforma obywatelska=civic platform) had been in power since 2007. It had steered Poland successfully through the financial crisis of 2008, making Poland the only European country that had not experienced a fall in national income during the crisis. However, the prime minister, Donald Tusk, had absconded to Brussels as head of the European Council (at the time he only knew Polish and a smattering of German; since then he has mastered English). The PO was further harmed by an illicit recording of its bigwigs foul mouthing their allies during an extravagant dinner at taxpayers’ expense.
What was unexpected was the extent of the PiS victory. Whereas during the period 2005-2007, PiS had governed in a coalition, it was now able to govern by itself, the first time a single party held power in post-communist Poland.
