(This article was prepared within the framework of KHAR Center’s research project “Authoritarian Regimes and Transregional Influence Mechanisms.”)
Introduction
For years considered the “cradle of democracy” in Eastern Europe, Poland has over the last decade, with the zigzags of its domestic and foreign policy, moved toward losing its status as a “key country” within the European Union. The nationalist-populist PiS (Law and Justice Party – Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) government, during its rule from 2015 to 2023, distanced the country from democratic standards such as media independence, rule of law, and fundamental freedoms, and seriously strained relations with the EU. However, unlike its neighbors Hungary and Slovakia, Polish society managed to change this trajectory in the 2023 parliamentary elections. The forces that won the elections and succeeded in forming a new liberal coalition revived hopes that the country would return to the path of democracy. The new government, led by Donald Tusk, enabled Poland to once again board the democracy train through democratic reforms implemented in a short time and steps taken to improve relations with the European Union. The EU unfroze the funds that had been suspended during the PiS government, and the country’s indicators related to media freedom, rule of law, and liberties improved.
However, in this year’s presidential elections, the victory of Karol Nawroski, supported by PiS, and his subsequent behavior showed that Poland’s path to democratic normalization would not be very smooth. Only a month has passed since the president was sworn in and took office, yet the duality observed in Poland’s political system already poses the risk of blocking an already fragile recovery process.
In this analysis, KHAR Center examines Poland’s attempts to return to democratic normalization after the democratic backsliding of 2015–2023, and to what extent the presidential elections may pose a threat to these efforts.
Key Questions of the Analysis
Within the framework of democratic normalization initiated by the Tusk government, what steps have been taken in Poland? How effective have these steps been? In terms of the future of this process, what risks are posed by the results of the presidential elections and the disagreements between the president’s office and the government, which represent two different poles? How could these risks affect the country’s position in the EU and the domestic situation?
Background – How did PiS enter Polish politics?
PiS’s entry onto the political stage coincided with 2001, considered a turning point in Poland’s political history. At that time, the ruling AWS government under Jerzy Buzek faced economic crisis, corruption allegations, and sharp criticism of its pension and healthcare reforms (The Economist, 2001). Right-wing parties, rooted in the legendary Solidarność movement, had significantly lost popularity, creating an entirely new situation in national politics. It was under these conditions that Buzek’s popular justice minister, Lech Kaczyński, founded his own party – PiS – in early 2001 (Bale, Szczerbiak, 2006a).
In the 2001 parliamentary elections, the Democratic Left Alliance, the successor of the Communist Party, returned to power after a four-year break with a very strong coalition. The surprise of these elections, however, was the entry of two new center-right political actors into the Polish political system: PiS, led by Kaczyński, and Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform Party (PO – Platforma Obywatelska), today’s prime minister. The Civic Platform won 13 percent of the vote, finishing second. PiS, with 9.5 percent of the vote, won 44 seats in the Sejm (Szczerbiak, 2002). When Lech Kaczyński was elected mayor of Warsaw in 2002, he handed party leadership over to his twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński (Forsal, 2010).
The liberal-conservative PO and nationalist-conservative PiS faced each other at the peak of national politics in 2005. PiS won the parliamentary elections with 27 percent of the vote, gaining 155 seats in the Sejm and 49 in the Senate. PO won 24.1 percent, obtaining 133 seats in the Sejm and 34 in the Senate (Bale, Szczerbiak, 2006b).
Ideologically, a coalition between PiS and PO was more expected. But disagreements over who would be speaker of the Sejm, over ministerial distribution within the cabinet, and PiS’s closeness to the radical right prevented the coalition from happening. On the contrary, Poland’s two center-right parties emerged from these elections as permanent rivals and enemies (Markowski, 2007).
In the 2005 presidential elections, PiS nominated Lech Kaczyński, while PO nominated Donald Tusk. In the second round, Kaczyński won. Under their prior agreement, since Lech Kaczyński had been elected president, his brother Jarosław Kaczyński left the prime minister’s post. After a short-lived minority government failed, in 2006 PiS formed a coalition with the leftist Samoobrona and the nationalist League of Polish Families (BBC, 2006).
Coalition infighting, a video recording showing Kaczyński’s deputy offering a Samoobrona MP a bribe to return to the coalition, and fierce rivalry with PO turned the November 2006 local elections into a crucial event for PiS. The Kaczyńskis lost those elections (BBC, 2006b). Shortly after, corruption allegations involving Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper led to the fall of the government (BBC, 2007).
In the early parliamentary elections of November 2007, Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform Party won a decisive victory with 41.5 percent of the vote. PiS received 32.1 percent, but its former coalition partners failed to pass the electoral threshold. The pro-European Tusk formed a majority coalition with the centrist Polish People’s Party (PSL) and came to power (Meseznikov, Gyárfášová, and Smilov, 2008).
In April 2010, Lech Kaczyński and many senior Polish officials died in a plane crash in Smolensk. Jarosław Kaczyński, as party leader, ran in that year’s presidential elections but lost to PO’s candidate Bronisław Komorowski (BBC, 2010). PO also won the 2011 parliamentary elections and continued the coalition.
The Defeat of Liberalism
However, in the 2015 parliamentary elections, PiS returned to power. The comeback began when PiS’s presidential candidate, Andrzej Duda, defeated PO’s candidate Komorowski. This psychological advantage also played a role in the parliamentary elections, where PiS regained control over all branches of power. Moreover, this happened with a significant margin of votes and a first in Polish politics: for the first time since the establishment of the multiparty system in 1989, a single party won an outright majority in the Sejm – PiS gained 235 seats in the 460-member chamber (New York Times, 2015). Both the liberal Civic Platform and left-wing forces suffered serious losses, and the most right-wing parliament in Europe was formed (Gaeta, 2015).
The 2015 elections marked a critical turning point in Polish politics. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Poland had been recognized as the “model student” that embraced the principles of political liberalism and neoliberal economics and adopted Western values. Although the liberal reforms and the resulting liberal regime were perceived by segments of society nostalgic for communism as “contrary to the principle of equality,” a consensus had formed around liberal capitalism, and the system had gained legitimacy. The main reasons were that the consumption opportunities of the Western model were superior to socialism’s scarcity, NATO and EU membership goals, the political elite’s adoption of the Western model (including former communists), and the rise of the middle class. Thanks to these factors, the liberal consensus lasted in Poland for 20 years (Czech, Kassner, 2021a).
However, objective problems arising from the nature of the liberal regime, subjective setbacks during PO’s eight years in power, and the rise of right-wing trends in Europe led to the breakdown of this consensus in 2015.
PiS succeeded in consolidating discontent in areas directly affecting people’s lives, such as employment, land, and investment. After the collapse of its former ally Samoobrona, it assumed the role of representing the poor peasantry, gained the support of the country’s largest trade union, and grew popular with nationalist economic rhetoric against foreign capital. PiS’s conservative Catholic media disseminated the narrative that foreign investment meant “selling the country to outsiders.” This rhetoric resonated with the dissatisfaction of small and medium-sized local agricultural and industrial groups who were unhappy with the influx of large foreign capital after EU membership (Czech, Kassner, 2021b).
The growth model tied to Europeanization produced inequality: an increased upper-income share, the continuation of the low-wage model, and the spread of insecure labor contracts strengthened the perception of the liberal regime as “elitist.” Despite significant economic growth, frustration among some social groups made change inevitable (Uroz, 2020).
Disappointment with the ruling elite and the prevailing societal sentiment that “it’s time for change” shifted the situation heavily in PiS’s favor (Cześnik, 2018). PiS won particularly strong support from vulnerable groups – the less educated, residents of small towns and villages, the elderly, and people in eastern regions. It also managed to consolidate conservative, religious, and nationalist currents. Here, the Catholic Church stepped in: with its support, PiS was able to gather all anti-liberal democracy voters around itself (Marody and Mandes, 2017).
Another factor that ended the liberal coalition was the emergence of wiretapped recordings of government officials’ conversations in a restaurant ahead of the elections. Donald Tusk declared that this was kompromat prepared by Russia to influence the election outcome. Later, numerous claims emerged that PiS and Russia were behind the year-long “restaurant bugging” scandal, but the damage was already done – the scandal led to resignations in Poland and eroded trust in the liberal government (VOA, 2019).
A Revanchist Turn, or PiS’s “Good Change”
The above-mentioned factors laid the foundation for the populist-conservative PiS government, which would take Poland backward in terms of democratic standards and freedoms. Moreover, this time the government was different from PiS’s 2005–2007 rule: it was a single-party majority, not a coalition; and unlike in 2005, when PiS was not fully anti-liberal, by 2015 it emerged with a combative and nationalist ideology, completely distancing itself from the neoliberal doctrine (Czech, Kassner, 2021c).
PiS launched its 2015 election campaign with the slogan “good change” (dobra zmiana) (Kinowska-Mazaraki, 2021). The new government, claiming that liberal forces had ruined the country, promised anti-neoliberal economic policies, a rebalancing of labor and capital, limiting foreign capital’s influence, repealing pension and education reforms adopted by previous governments, introducing new social benefits, and tax changes (Gebert, 2016).
In the early period after the elections, it fulfilled part of its promises, especially in the social sphere – measures such as 500 zloty monthly per child, 300 zloty for school starters, a 13th pension payment, lowering the retirement age, and raising the minimum wage expanded PiS’s electorate even more. But these were not enough to reduce inequality, and by the government’s third year, poverty levels rose again (Statistics Poland, 2018).
Worse for the country was that popular steps in social policy were taken at the expense of undermining democratic standards. With Jarosław Kaczyński’s famous words, “We will build Budapest in Warsaw,” the PiS government, taking Hungary under Orbán as a model, began capturing institutions at a greater pace. By the government’s third year, experts were already saying that PiS was carrying out an accelerated and expanded version of the changes Orbán had implemented in Hungary since 2010 (Sadurski, 2018a).
Judicial capture
The first victim of PiS’s “good change” policy was the judicial system. As soon as PiS came to power, it radically changed the Constitutional Tribunal and the judiciary as a whole.
- In October 2015, the Sejm, whose term was about to end, appointed 5 judges to the Constitutional Tribunal. However, this decision was also controversial, because the terms of two of the judges expired in December, and the Sejm had no right to elect them. Nevertheless, the vote was held and the judges were elected. But since Andrzej Duda, the PiS-backed president elected in August, did not attend the swearing-in of any of the judges, they were effectively unable to begin exercising their powers. After the elections, the new Sejm, with a PiS majority, ignored the previous parliament’s decision and again appointed 5 judges—this time, too, the election of 2 judges was illegitimate. Nevertheless, those judges immediately took the oath in the presence of the president. The Constitutional Tribunal ruled that holding elections to replace the 2 judges whose terms expired in December was contrary to the basic law. This led to a constitutional crisis in the country—3 judges elected by the previous parliament could not begin work because they were unable to take the oath before the president, while the president of the Constitutional Tribunal did not allow the 3 judges elected by PiS to take up their duties. The government then targeted the status of the president of the Constitutional Tribunal: with the help of laws contrary to the constitution, the president’s term of office was shortened, making a change of president mandatory and leading to the election of a new, government-friendly president (Cambridge, 2022).
- In 2016 new changes were introduced: for the 15-member Constitutional Tribunal, the quorum required to convene was raised from 5 to 11, and the quorum for decision-making was raised to a two-thirds majority—thus creating a mechanism for the 5 members chosen by the ruling party to have a decisive impact on decisions (Jonski, Rogowski, 2020).
- In 2016–2017, the PiS government captured the Supreme Court and the National Council of the Judiciary. Until then, the 25-member National Council of the Judiciary was formed as follows—15 judges appointed from within various courts, 4 members appointed by the parliament, 2 members appointed by the Senate, 1 member appointed by the president, plus the presidents of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, and the minister of justice. But in 2017 the parliament passed a law terminating the terms of the Council’s members and stipulating that the 15 members previously appointed by the courts would henceforth be determined by the parliament. Thus, the National Council of the Judiciary passed entirely under government control (Macy, Duncan, 2020–21a).
- The government then, under the name of Supreme Court reforms, adopted a law reducing the mandatory retirement age for judges. Thanks to this law, which allowed for the removal of more than 40 percent of Supreme Court judges, judges close to the government were appointed in place of those ousted (Sadurski, 2018b). In 2018, the European Commission objected to this; as a result of complaints to the European Court, an order was issued to suspend the law’s implementation. The Polish government later had to repeal the law, and at the end of 2018 President Duda signed a decree restoring to office the judges forcibly sent into retirement. In 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union also ruled that this law violated EU law (DW, 2019).
- In 2017, the government created a disciplinary chamber for judges, and through a council composed of judges appointed by the minister of justice, began punishing “undesirable” judges. In 2019 the PiS government adopted a law popularly known as the “muzzle law”—this gave the government the right to demand disciplinary penalties for judges who commented on political issues, objected to the judicial system it had formed, or appealed their decisions to European instances. After the Council of Europe threatened to restrict financial funds allocated to Poland, the Polish government seemingly stepped back, abolishing the Judicial Disciplinary Chamber and creating in its place a Chamber of Professional Responsibility, but this did not stop the process of capturing the judicial system (Macy, Duncan, 2020–21b).
Media hunt
The second victim of the “good change” policy was the media. Although independent channels such as the U.S.-based TVN managed to continue operating, control over a large part of the country’s media passed into the hands of the ruling power. The media in the country became more polarized than ever before (Chapman, 2017).
With a law adopted in 2016, leadership of the state media bodies—TVP and Polskie Radio—passed directly to the authorities. The Ministry of Finance was given the authority to appoint and dismiss the heads of these bodies. A National Media Council was created, 5 of whose 7 members were effectively appointed by the ruling power (BBC, 2016). A complaint to the Constitutional Tribunal about the law was rejected thanks to the efforts of the new court composition. People close to the government were appointed to lead the state media bodies.
Journalists’ activities in the parliament were restricted; later, as a result of protests, the government was forced to back down (Chapman, 2017b).
In 2020, the state oil company PKN Orlen purchased a 65 percent stake in RUCH, the owner of the country’s newspaper kiosks and newspaper distribution points (Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich, 2020).
In 2020, the state-controlled oil company PKN Orlen bought Polska Press, one of the country’s largest regional media groups, which included 20 newspapers, 120 weekly magazines, and more than 500 websites. This ensured that regional media also came under government control (Politico, 2020).
In 2021, the government adopted a law prohibiting non-EU individuals and companies from owning stakes in media outlets in Poland (DW).
Attacks on civil society and freedoms
The PiS government’s “good change” strategy did not spare civil society either. Mechanisms of pressure were created against NGOs critical of the authorities, and control was strengthened. The LGBT and feminist movements and environmentalists also became among the government’s main targets. And again, just like in Hungary, propaganda increased claiming that the European Union was an external force and enemy interfering in Poland’s internal affairs (Sadurowski, 2019b).
In 2017, the government created the National Freedom Institute, which oversees and distributes the financial funds of all NGOs. This body especially restricted the funding of NGOs that criticized the government—feminist, LGBT, and, more broadly, human rights organizations (Gwiazdá, 2020).
Women’s rights organizations and environmentalists were subjected to police pressure (HRW, 2017).
In 2020, by decision of the Constitutional Tribunal, abortion was effectively banned—except in cases of rape, incest, and danger to the mother’s health (BBC, 2020).
In some municipalities, “LGBT-free zone” decisions were adopted, and hostility toward LGBT people was propagated (European Commission, 2021).
Opposition politicians, civil society representatives, and journalists were subjected to surveillance through the “Pegasus” spyware program. Between 2017 and 2022, 578 people were tracked with this program by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies (AP, 2024).
In 2023, the PiS government attempted to pass a “foreign influence” law serving to remove its eternal rival Donald Tusk from politics, and therefore referred to as “Lex Tusk” (Venice Commission, 2023).
Return to normalization
However, despite all the anti-democratic efforts masked as “good change,” both those listed above and those not listed, the PiS government did not manage to turn Poland into Hungary. In the 2023 parliamentary elections, opposition parties—primarily PO—changed the PiS government and the course of the country. PiS again became the largest party in the Sejm with 35 percent of the vote, but it could not form a government. The PO, Third Way, and New Left parties together received 54 percent of the vote (AP, 2023). Nevertheless, President Duda, elected with PiS’s support, after the elections again gave the mandate to form a government to the incumbent prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki (Wiadomości, 2023).
The opposition objected to this; PO, Poland 2050, the Polish People’s Party, and the New Left announced that they were ready to form a coalition by nominating Donald Tusk for prime minister. But Duda hastily held a swearing-in ceremony for Morawiecki (Prezydent PL, 2023). The lifespan of this unprecedented power grab was two weeks— in December, the Sejm refused to approve Morawiecki’s cabinet, and on the same day Tusk was elected prime minister (Reuters, 2023).
The new government declared the goal of returning the country to normalization and chose a course of normalizing relations with the European Union, which had escalated to the point of sanctions, and announced an “action plan” for this (Wojcik, 2024a).
This plan envisaged:
- the abolition of the Disciplinary Chamber created during the PiS era and the formation of independent mechanisms;
- reducing the parliament’s role in the formation of the National Council of the Judiciary;
- repealing laws providing for the forced retirement of judges and mechanisms of political pressure on them;
- taking steps to restore the legitimacy of the Constitutional Tribunal;
- removing state media bodies from political influence and introducing democratic reforms in the National Media Council;
- implementing the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union;
- fulfilling the “milestones” required for the unfreezing of EU funds;
- reducing pressure on NGOs and eliminating regressions related to fundamental freedoms;
- making legislative changes to protect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. (Wojcik, 2024b)
Within a short time, the steps taken by the Tusk government in these directions reduced tensions in relations with the EU. The European Union began to lift the sanctions it had applied to Poland during the PiS period. The European Commission suspended the “Article 7” procedure applied to Poland for 6 years in May 2024 (Reuters, 2024). After this decision, it became possible to gradually release to the country the billions of euros frozen for Poland in the NextGenerationEU recovery fund during the PiS period. Since full use of the funds depends on the implementation of reforms, it is not yet possible to benefit from all resources, but in terms of strengthening the government’s legitimacy in the eyes of the people and beginning to address economic problems, this was extremely important.
The Tusk government also took swift steps to ensure media freedom—the leadership of state television and radio was changed, these bodies were removed from government control, and they returned to a news-oriented policy. Thanks to these and similar steps, Poland’s media freedom index, which had collapsed during the PiS period, began to rise again (RSF, 2024).
Duality, or Poland’s sword of Damocles
However, despite the government’s plans and steps, the reforms are not progressing at the pace desired by Polish society and the EU. Because of the powers of the presidents supported by PiS (first Duda, now Navroski) and, in particular, the slowing of judicial-constitutional reforms using those powers, the justice system has still not been cleansed, which hinders reforms. Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal and other courts can block the adoption of laws and decisions. The same problem is observed in many state institutions (Wojcik, 2024c). In addition, on issues such as LGBT rights, abortion rights, women’s rights, and similar matters, while NGOs and the EU demand rapid change, the government is trying to act cautiously, taking into account the deep polarization formed in society during the PiS period (HRW, 2024).
On the other hand, the newly elected hard-line nationalist, PiS-backed president Karol Navroski’s attempts to create problems for the government in foreign policy also seriously complicate Poland’s path back to normalization.
Experts conclude that working with Navroski will be more difficult for the Tusk government than working with Duda. It is assumed that the vetoes and attempts to block reforms seen during Duda’s term will continue in an upward trajectory in Navroski’s term, and the new president does not hide this either. Immediately after being elected president, Navroski began vetoing laws adopted by the government, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Duda. Attempting to interfere with the powers of the government, the president opposed the construction of an airport in the country and demanded that the government completely change its program (Politico, September 2025a).
The current governing coalition does not have enough deputies to override a presidential veto (for this, a three-fifths majority of those participating in the vote in parliament is required). On the other hand, the Constitutional Tribunal is still under PiS control, which means that legislative reforms can be easily blocked. According to a legal amendment implemented by PiS in 2023, the president’s approval is also required to determine the country’s representatives in European Union structures. This means that Navroski will also tie the Tusk government’s hands in EU appointments (Wojcik, June 2025).
Navroski is also trying to compete with the Tusk government in foreign policy. At the beginning of September, Navroski went to Washington to meet Donald Trump, who had openly supported his election. Prime Minister Tusk objected, stating that under the constitution the country’s foreign policy is determined by the government, but Navroski’s office described this as a “joke” (Politico, September 2025b). Navroski met Trump on September 3 and returned satisfied after the U.S. president’s statement, “Our soldiers will stay in Poland; we will even increase them if necessary.”
Conclusion
The Tusk government’s efforts to once again raise Poland to the position of “Europe’s diligent student” and return it to democratic normalization are at great risk due to deep polarization in the country, PiS’s still-significant electorate despite being in opposition, its ability to influence decisions thanks to its capture of state institutions between 2015 and 2023, and the ambitions of the new president backed by Trump. It is true that a situation in which the president and the government represent different political-ideological forces (cohabitation) is not being experienced for the first time in Poland’s history. But the current situation contains several distinct risks.
First, Polish society is highly polarized, and the government and the president are at the far ends of these two poles, which is a very serious problem for Poland’s already fragile democracy.
Second, this situation hinders Poland’s return to the path of democracy, delays reforms, and as a result increases the likelihood of PiS returning to power—Navroski’s goal is to achieve this even before 2027, when parliamentary elections are to be held (Politico, June 2025).
Third, the ambition that Navroski has demonstrated in foreign policy immediately after being elected president, and his having the support of U.S. President Trump, may reduce Poland’s prestige and role within the EU.
In this regard, only the consistent and continuous implementation of reforms despite all difficulties, the serious democratic potential of Polish society despite deep polarization, and—unlike neighbors such as Hungary and Slovakia—its being less exposed to Russia’s political influence may be the path to salvation.
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Politico, iyun 2025. Nationalist Nawrocki wins Polish presidential election
