The outcome of Sunday’s presidential runoff makes Tusk less powerful nationally, and it’s not clear if his coalition of different parties will be able to last until the end of its term in late 2027.
Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw and a friend of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, lost the presidential runoff on Sunday. Tusk said he would ask parliament to hold a vote of confidence in his coalition government.
With 50.89% of the vote, Karol Nawrocki, a conservative, won the race.
In a Monday night TV speech, Tusk said, “No matter how we judge the winning candidate, we should recognize his victory and congratulate his voters.”
“I promise you that I will not stop for a second as prime minister of our country.” There is no difference between now and after the presidential polls. We will work with the new president when it is necessary and possible to do so.
The outcome hurts Tusk politically, and it’s not clear if his alliance of different parties will be able to last until the end of its term in late 2027.
It’s not clear when the vote of confidence might happen.
Nawrocki will take over for Andrzej Duda, a conservative whose second and last term ends on August 6.
The country was on edge for the close election because the first round two weeks before showed deep divisions along the eastern flank of NATO and the EU.
In Poland, the prime minister has most of the day-to-day power, but the president can change foreign policy and, most importantly, veto laws.
Tusk took office in late 2023 with an alliance government that had a lot of different ideologies. He hasn’t been able to get enough support to keep some of his campaign promises, like making abortion easier.
With Nawrocki as president, he is likely to face even more problems.
The conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), which ran Poland from 2015 to 2023, backs the 42-year-old amateur boxer who has never been in politics before.
On Monday, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling party, asked all political groups to back the creation of a professional government.
“Today we need an answer in the form of a technical government, which, like the president, will be non-partisan. The leader of this government needs to be chosen through talks with people who are willing to back such a plan. “They don’t have to be related to us,” he said.
“Individual ministries would be managed by specialists in specific areas of social life.”
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