Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition government secured a critical parliamentary confidence vote, surviving 243-210 in the 460-seat Sejm lower house, according to AP News.
Supporters rose to applaud and chant Tusk’s name following the result, which aimed to shore up legitimacy after the opposition’s presidential victory plunged Poland into institutional paralysis. Tusk had personally requested the vote, declaring:
I am asking for a vote of confidence with full conviction that we have a mandate to govern, to take full responsibility for what is happening in Poland.
The move followed his ally Rafał Trzaskowski’s 1 June loss to historian Karol Nawrocki in Warsaw’s mayoral race. Nawrocki now replaces conservative President Andrzej Duda, who repeatedly vetoed Tusk’s reforms.
The presidential shift effectively dooms key coalition pledges like abortion liberalisation and same-sex civil unions, as Poland’s system grants the president veto powers over legislation. With Nawrocki aligned with the Law and Justice (PiS) opposition, Tusk faces near-insurmountable hurdles until parliamentary elections in late 2027.
The victory failed to mask the government’s fragility. Tusk’s unwieldy four-party coalition struggled with internal divisions, exacerbated by the surging popularity of national-oriented forces. During the confidence debate, lawmaker Grzegorz Braun vandalised an LGBTQ+ equality exhibition in parliament corridors, tearing down posters and trampling them.
Braun, a presidential candidate who won 6% of first-round votes in May, previously made headlines in 2023 for dousing Hanukkah candles with a fire extinguisher in the same chamber. Parliament Speaker Szymon Hołownia condemned Braun’s “vandalism,” vowing to restrict his access.
He does these things precisely to make himself famous. This is not the first time that Mr. Braun has committed vandalism on the premises of the Chancellery of the Sejm. I do not understand why there is still no indictment.
Defiantly declaring “I don’t know the word surrender,” the 68-year-old prime minister announced a July cabinet reshuffle with “new faces” and a June appointment of a government spokesperson to unify the coalition’s messaging.
I know the taste of victory, I know the bitterness of defeat, but I don’t know the word surrender.
