At first it seemed very unlikely – but now it has happened: the main representatives of six parties in Poland stood before an audience of millions in a televised debate on Monday night. A new parliament and therefore, indirectly, a government will be elected in Poland on Sunday. The election will decide whether the national conservative PiS can govern again after two terms, whether a center-left coalition of three opposition forces will be created or whether there will be a stalemate and possibly early elections. The debate was therefore eagerly awaited, especially as opposition leader Donald Tusk and then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki only confirmed their participation at short notice.
Gerhard Gnauck
Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.
Even before the show ended, one loser became clear: debate culture. The organizer of what was probably the only central discussion of this election campaign was the public broadcaster TVP, which under PiS degenerated into a mouthpiece for the ruling party even more than before. The concept was to mechanically give each politician exactly one minute of speaking time for each issue and not allow any interaction between the candidates (the latter was only partially successful).
The pair of moderators introduced each topic block – migration, security, privatization, retirement age, unemployment – with a long-winded question. The pattern of these questions went something like this: “There are two concepts about this topic. One of them is problematic, has risks and side effects and is favored by the opposition; the other is solid, safe and modern and is represented by the party in power.” In some ways, the piece recalled a motto of communist Walter Ulbricht, who proclaimed when the GDR was founded: “It has to look democratic, but we have to have everything in our hands.”
Morawiecki and Tusk are pale
Forced to wear this corset, the killers tried to move. Migration, external security, privatizations, retirement age, social policy and unemployment. The next surprise: the two leaders and also the oldest and most experienced candidates, Morawiecki and Tusk, were quite pale in the debate. Almost no observers saw her in the winning position at the end.
What was important about Tusk is that he likes to speak thoughtfully and take short pauses to think – the Presto staccato that many, including PiS politicians, exhibit is not his style. Morawiecki, on the other hand, was apparently told by his team to act aggressively and attack Tusk (to which Tusk commented with the question, “Did someone put something in your drink?”). But at the same time, the incumbent looked stiff and tense in a suit and tie.
Donald Tusk, head of government until 2014 and then president of the EU Council, was faced with accusations directed at himself in the moderators’ “questions”. For example, the fact that his government – like others in Europe – raised the retirement age, which PiS later reversed. In the debate, Tusk promised to “personally ensure that no one entertains the idea of raising the retirement age” if he wins the election. Tusk managed to go on the offensive several times. For example, with the statement that the government sold the modern Gdansk refinery to Saudi Arabia “for half the price the Saudis paid for the football player Ronaldo”.
Strong final word
Tusk also asked former banker Morawiecki how much, converted, his family earned from real estate transactions in recent years, “four, ten or 20 million euros?”. Tusk’s final words were strong: first, he surprisingly invited Morawiecki (“also with party leader Jarosław Kaczyński”) to another debate on Friday. And then his brief program for a change of government: “We will win together, we will hold the perpetrators of evil accountable, we will repair the damage and we will reconcile the people. At Christmas we will shake hands and you will see that everything will be normal!”
Of the representatives of the smaller groups, journalist Szymon Hołownia stood out, who only founded a party in 2020 and is today one of the leaders of the “Third Way” electoral alliance. He could hardly be surpassed in terms of fighting spirit, accuracy and speed of speech. His words about Israel were remarkable and, at the same time, a clear warning to Poland and PiS: “Internal weakness provokes external aggression. This reckless dispute unleashed by the Prime Minister of Israel over the rule of law has led to the internal weakness of the State, and the enemy was just waiting for it. Today the enemy (of Poland) is out there. But Poles need reconciliation among themselves.” Left-wing MP Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus and the far-right “Confederation” party with Krzysztof Bosak were also able to skillfully attack the head of government from the safe position of the opposition bench.
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Two more small surprises from this appearance: Prime Minister Morawiecki, contrary to usual, almost completely refrained from criticizing Germany. Furthermore, as was the case in the election campaign as a whole, what should have been a really big issue was largely missing: the fact that the government was endangering many billions of euros for Poland through its dispute with Brussels on the rule of law. Hołownia was the only one in the studio who raised this point.