After seven years in Brussels, Donald Tusk is back in Polish politics and he’s got one goal — to defeat the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“I’m back in 100 percent,” the former Polish prime minister and ex-president of the European Council told a Saturday congress of Civic Platform (PO), the troubled liberal party he founded in 2001.
He’s now the head of the European People’s Party, the EU’s largest grouping of center-right parties, but he made clear that he’s diving back into national politics to lead the charge against PiS — which has seen relations with Brussels sour thanks to accusations that it is backsliding on democracy, undermining the rule of law, curbing media freedom and unleashing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.
“The evil that PiS is performing is evident, shameless and permanent. It’s happening every day, in almost every matter,” Tusk, 64, said in an emotional speech that accused the government and its backers of corruption, clashes with the EU and Poland’s European partners, restriction of women’s rights, mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change denial.
The party’s current chief Boris Budka stepped aside to let Tusk retake the top job. He’s been accused of doing a lackluster job in leading a party that has failed to retake the political initiative since losing power to PiS in 2015.
“I put the future of the country and the future of PO above my own ambitions,” Budka said. “Donald Tusk is returning to Polish politics at my invitation and at my request.”
The party has long looked with longing at Tusk, who led Civic Platform to two electoral victories and ruled Poland from 2005 to 2014, seeing him as someone who could reenergize the party.
But it’s not clear if the wider electorate shares the same hunger. One recent survey found that more than 60 percent of respondents said he shouldn’t return to Polish politics.
POLAND NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS
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For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.
Old enemies
PiS is also certain to rewarm accusations that dogged the final days of Tusk’s government — that it was aloof, didn’t understand the needs of ordinary Poles, had no ambitious programs and that several ministers left after being embroiled in a scandal after recordings of their conversations in a fancy restaurant were published.
His old enemy Jarosław Kaczyński, the 72-year-old leader of PiS and Poland’s de facto ruler, unleashed that line of attack in an interview earlier this week. He accused Tusk of returning to Poland because he is lazy and loves Germany.
“That’s the brutal truth,” Kaczyński said. “All the rest with this asking and waiting is a bit of theater to sweeten this return.”
PiS holds its own party congress this weekend, where Kaczyński will be reaffirmed as leader. However, he is politically vulnerable — the ruling United Right coalition led by PiS is consumed with internal battles and last week lost its formal majority in the Polish parliament.
“After almost six years can we talk about success? Yes, we can,” Kaczyński told his party faithful, spelling out changes in social, international, cultural and educational policies. “We can say in every area.”
Tusk denounced the PiS congress as “a grotesque group of people.”
“It’s quite a pitiful parody of dictatorship,” he said. “This is not an overwhelming power. What’s overwhelming is our lack of faith and our weakness”
That means Tusk is back at a time when the opposition sees a chance of the government imploding and being forced to hold elections earlier than the scheduled date in 2023.
Tusk will have his work cut out for him in uniting squabbling opposition parties and adding energy and optimism to a grouping that’s lost faith in its ability to win. Civic Platform is trailing in opinion polls behind Poland 2050, a new grouping formed by Catholic journalist Szymon Hołownia that has succeeded in attracting some politicians from PO.
Tusk said he’s back because he believes PO is still able to win. “What’s the most important in politics, what’s so important today, not only for PO, is to regain the faith in its own agency and the possibility to win. Those who don’t believe in their own capabilities won’t win; a party that doesn’t believe in the meaning of its own existence won’t win,” he said.
The EPP did not issue a formal statement, but indicated there was no issue with Tusk staying on as the group’s chief while returning to active politics in Poland.