Donald Tusk makes his case before a confidence vote in Poland
World
Many have started blaming Tusk for Trzaskowski’s defeat,
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Prime Minister Donald Tusk made the case Wednesday to parliament that his centrist, pro-European coalition has brought progress to Poland as he seeks to regain political momentum after his camp’s stinging loss in the recent presidential election.
Tusk also acknowledged the new difficulties that he faces in a speech before a vote of confidence which he requested seeking to reaffirm the mandate of his coalition government.
The vote in parliament follows the narrow June 1 defeat of Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski to Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing nationalist backed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“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,” Tusk said. He said that his coalition’s challenges are greater as a result of the presidential election. But he also argued that the narrow defeat of Trzaskowski indicates that support remains strong for his political camp.
Tusk is expected to survive the vote in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. He remains the most powerful person in the Central European nation, and his government coalition has a parliamentary majority, with 242 seats in the 460-seat body.
Still, the close presidential race has rattled his coalition, an uneasy alliance of his centrist Civic Coalition, the Left party and the center-right Polish People’s Party.
Many have started blaming Tusk for Trzaskowski’s defeat, and his coalition partners have begun reevaluating the benefits and costs of sticking it out with him.
There are questions about what Tusk can realistically achieve before the next parliamentary election, scheduled for late 2027, and whether it will even survive that long in a new political environment in which the far right has seen an surge in popularity. Polish media and political analysts are debating whether this might be the 68-year-old Tusk’s political twilight.
