Donald Tusk addresses supporters in Lodz, Poland, with five days to go before the Oct. 15 election where his Civic Platform party – known by its Polish acronym, KO – hopes to unseat the Law and Justice party, or PiS.
Spotlights spun and pop music blared as Donald Tusk walked across a makeshift stage in an exhibition hall in Lodz and smiled at the crowd.
Around 2,000 people had packed into the hall Tuesday evening to hear the leader of Poland’s main opposition party deliver a rousing campaign speech aimed at mainly female voters.
“There are still fundamental, fundamental rights and freedoms for women in Poland in the 21st century to be won,” Mr. Tusk told the crowd. “We must make up for eight years of neglect, eight years of oppression, eight years of contempt and arrogance by the authorities towards Polish women.”
The stop in Lodz was one of many by Mr. Tusk as he dashed across the country in the final few days of campaigning before Poles vote on Sunday in elections to the legislature and senate.
His Civic Platform party, or KO, is trying to unseat the Law and Justice party, or PiS, which has ruled Poland since 2015.
A boy at a KO rally holds a sign reading 'gang of red,' which PiS uses as an insult against Mr. Tusk but KO has adopted as a badge of pride.
The long campaign has been particularly brutal, with vicious personal attacks flying on all sides.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, 75, has called Mr. Tusk “the personification of evil in Poland” and said he was “gathering all dark elements under his banner in order simply to win, to implement a plan that is not Polish, but a plan of the Brussels bureaucracy.”
Mr. Tusk, 66, has tried to stick to a more uplifting message – “it’s time for a happy Poland” he said in Lodz – but he has also labelled PiS dangerous and accused its leaders of scheming to pull the country out of the EU.
For the opposition, the stakes in Sunday’s vote couldn’t be higher.
“It is really dramatic,” said Adam Bodnar, Poland’s former ombudsman for citizen’s rights who is running as a KO candidate for the senate. “The most important aspect is whether we’ll be able to come back to the family of democratic nations or whether we will slide towards some kind of authoritarian system.”
PiS supporters react angrily to a woman with a European Union flag at an Oct. 10 rally in Lodz before a TV leaders' debate. PiS's socially conservative policies, such as restrictive abortion laws, have put it at odds with the rest of Europe.
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Opinion polls show that neither KO nor PiS is expected to win a majority of seats on Sunday. That leaves three smaller parties – the far-right Confederation, centrist Third Way and the Left – as likely kingmakers.
Since replacing KO as the governing party in 2015, PiS has pursued a populist agenda. The party won a second majority in 2019 and increased its share of the votes.
Many of its reforms have clashed with the EU, which has accused the government of weakening democratic institutions and trampling on women’s rights by restricting access to abortion.
The disputes have led Brussels to withhold around €110 billion, or $158-billion, in funding to Poland, something Mr. Tusk has vowed to unlock.
PiS supporters chafe at the criticism and argue that the government has provided the country with stability and growth.
“For me, being safe … is the most important and I know PiS can give me this,” said Malgorzata Polak, a 21-year-old university student in Warsaw. She said PiS had made Poland capable of standing up to EU heavyweights like Germany and France. “PiS shows that we mean something in this political world.”
Malgorzata Polak's sign reads 'the future is Poland' at a PiS rally in Lodz.
PiS’s campaign ads have relentlessly attacked Mr. Tusk. PiS portrays him as stooge of the EU and Germany who will open the floodgates to migrants from the Middle East and Africa.
The ruling party has also leveraged its grip on various institutions to bolster its campaign. The national energy company Orlen, whose chief executive openly supports PiS, has been accused of slashing gas prices by 7 per cent in a blatant attempt to curry support for PiS. Orlen has denied the accusation. Criticism has also been levelled at Poland’s public broadcaster TVP, which has been revamped by PiS.
But there are indications that a growing number of Poles have become disenchanted with PiS and that the electorate is ready for a change.
“I think people are completely fed up,” said Karolina Pikula, a 31-year-old mother of two who lives in Rzeszów and is running as a first-time candidate for the far-right party Confederation. She saw the party as a vibrant alternative to PiS and KO. Its policies – which include slashing taxes, a near total ban on abortion and cutting support for Ukraine – have been controversial but Ms. Pikula says they resonate with voters, especially young people.
Confederation’s co-leaders – Krzysztof Bosak and Sławomir Mentzen – have backed away from comments by Mr. Mentzen that “we don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortions, taxes, or the European Union.” Mr. Bosak told The Globe and Mail this week that Confederation was a “Poland-first party.”
“We need responsible economic policy, we would like to secure our sovereignty and our independence and conservative values,” he said.
Signs for Confederation and PiS cover many of the walls and lampposts of Praga, one of Warsaw's poorest neighbourhoods.
Confederation’s support has hovered around 10 per cent and it’s seen as a potential coalition partner for PiS if the ruling party falls short of a majority.
The best hope for KO, which is expected to finish second to PiS, is an alignment with the other smaller parties, Third Way and the Left, which are also polling at around 10 per cent.
“I think this time, PiS definitely can be beaten,” said Adam Kościelak, 31, a Left candidate in Szczecin in western Poland whose father was born in Edmonton.
There is still a small percentage of Poles who haven’t made up their minds, and their decisions will be pivotal.
Michal Bartoszewski, a 27-year-old physiotherapist in Warsaw, doesn’t support PiS and he’s not entirely sold on the opposition leaders. He’s leaning toward Third Way.
Regardless of how he casts his ballot, Mr. Bartoszewski doubts PiS will lose. The party is too entrenched, he said, and it has strong support in rural areas which elect proportionately more MPs. “I think they will win but maybe not by a huge amount,” he said. “I think that’s the best we can do this year.”
Michal Bartoszewski walks his dog Stefan in Warsaw, where he says he will support an opposition party but believes PiS will likely win on election day.