On a Sunday in late May, when the cities of Poland were already full of hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips, when the fountains in the parks had already begun to jet vigorously again after the torpor of the winter frost, a ruthless electoral marathon got underway. Its first act — underhand and unexpected — was a referendum in which the citizens of Kraków were called to vote on the performance of their mayor, Aleksander Miszalski. Miszalski had won the local elections in 2024, succeeding his predecessor Jacek Majchrowski, who had concluded a mandate spanning more than twenty years — marked by various shadows, but very solid. When a forty-three-year-old politician takes the place of a seventy-seven-year-old, everyone expects considerable change, and Miszalski had started out promising something of a revolution. The mayor is a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s party, Civic Coalition (KO), and his opponents waited for his mistakes, allowed a certain frustration to grow, stoked half-truths, and in the end gathered 130,000 signatures to call a referendum on his record. Thirty percent of Kraków’s citizens turned out to vote, and naturally those who answered the opposition’s call were the discontented, who voted en masse against Miszalski. The source of the no-confidence vote lay above all in the decision to create low-emission zones, imposing a toll on anyone wishing to enter the centre of Kraków in highly polluting vehicles. The opposition fought so hard that it managed to bury under a tide of outrage and accusations what should certainly not have been a minor detail for the people of Kraków: the toll did not apply to Kraków residents. Miszalski resigned, a campaign for fresh local elections was launched, the opposition proposed a flood of referendums in other cities governed by KO, and above all began its charge against Prime Minister Tusk.
In Kraków
Next year, four large European countries will go to the polls. Among them are Italy, France, and Poland — three states whose specific weight within the EU is considerable, and which also bear on the choices to be made about our future and that of Ukraine. Kraków is not just a local election, but a national test — and therefore a European one too. In miniature, it shows what can happen on a larger scale: methods, challenges, alliances. For now, few candidates or would-be candidates are known, and although those who speak out talk mainly about cars and fuel, they are already beginning to send messages on other matters. The candidate from the far-right party Konfederacja, for instance, has promised a “circulation zone free of mosques and SUVs with Ukrainian number plates.” A former model, soldier, and boxing enthusiast also aspires to run, promising “an end to green terror” and only the Polish flag on the buildings of public institutions. Her name is Mariana Schreiber, and for now she has one prominent backer: President Karol Nawrocki.
A year of the presidency
On the first of June last year, the historian, football ultras, boxer, and nominally independent candidate put forward by the largest far-right party PiS — Karol Nawrocki — was elected head of the Republic of Poland with 50.9 percent of the vote. The credit belonged less to him, though he knew where to strike, than to his political creator, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, and to the missteps of Tusk, who had championed the re-candidacy of Warsaw’s mayor Rafał Trzaskowski — already defeated four years earlier and so certain of victory that he had underestimated the campaign. Even today, KO is analysing its defeat, but the analysis is straightforward. In a conversation with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, one of the chiefs of Trzaskowski’s campaign admits that everything was dominated by chaos, including one of the most damaging episodes: when the Warsaw mayor signed, without reading it, an ordinance introducing equality principles in the city administration, including the removal of crosses from offices. The mayor only found out what he had signed when the newspapers noticed it. He picked up the phone, called the official who had handled the document, and — as Sławomir Nitras recounts to Gazeta Wyborcza — “it was the first time we heard him shout.” A disaster. Nawrocki won with ease, with the freshness and shrewdness of someone who presents himself as an outsider while having strong backing behind him, and by distancing himself from PiS on certain issues — such as support for Ukraine — he picked up votes from even further to the right, and arrived at the presidential residence on Krakowskie Przedmieście with one objective: to bring down the government. He has not succeeded — yet he has tried everything.
How PiS is faring
In one year, Nawrocki has issued more than thirty vetoes to block government reforms and judicial appointments, earning himself the nickname “Vetomat.” But Tusk is still standing, his party continues to lead in the polls, while PiS is in steady decline. The goal of toppling the prime minister was meant to be achieved within a few months, and when the failure became clear, Nawrocki turned into the architect of a new alliance to unite the far right of PiS with the even further right of the Konfederacja bloc — which is itself beginning to lose votes to the still more extreme right of Grzegorz Braun, ultranationalist, antisemite, and leader of Korona. The alliance is not coming together: PiS is not willing to submit to the others and is fracturing into factions, all jostling to court Kaczyński, who still reigns over the party. Some are pushing towards Trumpism and finding a more receptive audience for now — such as former Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek — while others, like former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, want to return to a conservative, Eurosceptic but steadfastly Atlanticist right. Inside PiS there is always someone trying to straighten out the party, to “‘Melonise’ it,” as people in Warsaw put it — but that someone usually loses.
How Tusk is faring
The prime minister has a problem: he had intended to step down after this term, having returned to Warsaw to revive his Civic Coalition — a mission he accomplished by winning the 2023 elections. Attempts were made to blame him for Trzaskowski’s defeat, but it became clear that doing so would be political suicide. Now, however, there is no other Tusk: the mayor of Warsaw is politically damaged, Foreign Minister Sikorski — who also harbours leadership ambitions — fails to convince, and Tusk will most likely have to stay on to lead a fierce electoral campaign, at the risk of a glittering career ending in defeat. Without Tusk, the party seems hollow for now — but the prime minister is a man of instincts, and rather than looking around him he has grasped the need to begin building a mythology for the next vote. His inspiration came from Hungary’s Péter Magyar, who defeated Viktor Orbán. Tusk felt the energy coming from Budapest and immediately sought to channel it into Warsaw, projecting the image of a pro-European, liberal, Atlanticist centre-right capable of leading revolutions in that part of Europe and beyond. For Magyar it was his first electoral campaign; for Tusk it will not be — but the template exists: always be present, be everywhere in person and not just on social media; be contemptuous (Tusk already knows how); never be caught flat-footed; reach everyone; do not cede patriotic pride to the other side.
The proverb
There is one other detail that Tusk took great note of from the outcome of the Hungarian elections: it was not just Orbán who lost, but Trump along with him — the same Trump who is very fond of Nawrocki, to the point of having said he will send troops to Poland solely out of the esteem he holds for him. In Budapest, Trump campaigned for Orbán, against Magyar. There are many differences between the two countries, but there is also a proverb that exists in both languages: “Polish and Hungarian, two brotherly friends — both for the sabre and for the glass.” One fights, and then one drinks — together. For now it remains an aspiration; it must be turned into a strategy.
