Polish President Andrzej Duda and Donald Tusk, the likely head of the next government, clashed in a verbal altercation that bodes ill for the political rivals’ uneasy coexistence, POLITICO reports.
Before becoming president in 2015, Duda was a member of the European Parliament from the Law and Justice Party (PiS). He has long remained loyal to this nationalist party. Duda told the right-wing Sieci weekly:
I am the president, but Donald Tusk is not my candidate for prime minister.
Duda is signalling that he will use his presidential powers to thwart the new administration, instead of simply stepping back and allowing Tusk to steer Poland on a new course in line with the EU mainstream.
Tusk and his allies have promised major changes to the PiS programme: limiting the role of religion in the education system, lifting tough restrictions on abortion, and sacking PiS loyalists in the media and state-owned companies. The likely new government also wants to undo years of judicial reforms aimed at tightening political control over judges, but which have sparked a fight with the EU, with Brussels penalising Warsaw by depriving it of billions of dollars in funds because of problems with the rule of law.
The problem for Tusk is that many of these changes require new laws, and Duda has a presidential veto that will be very difficult to override. Duda told the weekly:
I have used the veto more than once. I will not hesitate to do so again.
Duda picked outgoing Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for his first attempt to form a government, following the 15 October election in which a coalition of opposition parties won a parliamentary majority. That attempt is almost certain to fail within the next three weeks, as Law and Justice has just 194 seats in the 460-seat parliament and other parties have rejected it as a partner.
Duda went on to say that the coalition agreement between Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition, the centre-right Third Way and the left “has not convinced me that it is worth abandoning the good parliamentary tradition whereby the winning party or coalition is the first to receive a mandate to form a government”.
He also lashed out at opposition parties for not presenting him with a convincing programme. Tusk, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2014 and then moved to Brussels to become president of the European Council, responded to Duda in the same way. Tusk tweeted:
President Duda said: ‘Tusk won’t be my prime minister.’ I confirm that. I won’t be.
The spat does not bode well for the future. Tusk and his coalition are likely to take power next month after Morawiecki tried and failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence. However, Duda’s second and final presidential term ends in 2025, so he will have to co-operate with a Tusk-led administration for two years. Michał Dworczyk, a PiS minister, told Polish television:
Throughout his life and political experience, President Andrzej Duda shows that he is on a completely different side of the political scene than Donald Tusk.
The proposed coalition, led by Tusk, has 248 seats in the lower house of parliament, a solid majority but far from the 276 votes needed to override Duda’s veto. The president is already signalling flares.
Speaking in parliament a week ago, Duda defended the work of the outgoing PiS government and threatened to veto laws that he said could undo the party’s major achievements, such as the expansion of social benefits, or any attempt to “limit, undermine or question the president’s constitutional powers”. He also warned the new government would want to “take revenge” on PiS after eight years in power.
The coalition agreement pledges to investigate and prosecute anyone guilty of breaking the law, violating the constitution or misusing public funds.
Before the election, the Civic Coalition said it would hold Duda accountable before the State Tribunal, a special body that tries top officials, for appointing inadequate judges in an attempt to uphold PiS judicial reforms. Its 100-point electoral program said:
Violations of the constitution and the rule of law will be swiftly called to account and judged.
