Tusk's government survives vote of confidence in Poland as he bids to reassert control

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government survived a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, shoring up its mandate after the nationalist opposition’s victory in Poland’s presidential election deepened political gridlock and raised doubts about Tusk’s ability to deliver on key reforms.

Lawmakers voted 243-210 in favor of the government in the 460-seat Sejm, the lower house, with supporters rising to applaud Tusk and chant his name.

Tusk had requested the vote, saying Poland is in a new reality and that he was seeking a fresh opening, following the June 1 loss of Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski — his close ally — to nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki.

Backed by President Donald Trump, Nawrocki is set to replace Andrzej Duda, another conservative who repeatedly blocked Tusk’s reform efforts.

“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 earlier in the day.

Most of the power in Poland's parliamentary system rests with an elected parliament and a government chosen by the parliament. However, the president can veto legislation and represents the country abroad.

Tusk had long counted on a Trzaskowski victory to break the institutional deadlock created by Duda’s vetoes. Instead, he now faces an incoming president aligned with the nationalist opposition and openly hostile to his government’s legislative priorities.

“We cannot close our eyes to reality,” Tusk said. “A president who was reluctant to accept the changes we proposed for Poland and our voters is being replaced by a president who is at least equally reluctant to those changes and proposals.”

The election result rattled the already uneasy governing coalition, which spans from the political left to center-right and has struggled to deliver on key campaign pledges, including liberalizing Poland’s abortion law and legalizing same-sex civil unions.

Though he survived Wednesday's vote, the road ahead looks rocky for Tusk.

There are questions about what Tusk can realistically achieve before the next parliamentary election, scheduled for late 2027, and whether the coalition will survive that long amid a surge in popularity for the far right. Polish media and political analysts are debating whether this might be the 68-year-old Tusk's political twilight.

“I know the taste of victory, I know the bitterness of defeat, but I don’t know the word surrender,” a defiant Tusk said ahead of the vote.

As part of his fresh start, he announced plans for a government reconstruction in July that will include “new faces.” He said a government spokesperson would be appointed in June — an acknowledgement that the four-party coalition needs someone who can present a unified message on behalf of all the coalition partners. So far Tusk has sought to communicate government policies to the public himself on social media and in news conferences.

Tusk served as Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014 and then as president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. He became Poland's prime minister again in December 2023 in a country exhausted by the pandemic and inflation, and with political divisions deep and bitter.

In a sign of those divisions, half of the parliament hall was empty on Wednesday morning when Tusk gave his address, with many lawmakers from the right-wing Law and Justice party boycotting his speech. Tusk said their absence showed disrespect to the nation.

As lawmakers held a debate that went on for hours, an extreme far-right lawmaker, Grzegorz Braun, destroyed an exhibition promoting LGBTQ+ equality in the corridors of parliament, pulling down posters and trampling on them.

Braun, who has been accused of being antisemitic and extinguished Hanukkah candles in parliament with a fire extinguisher in 2023, was a presidential candidate who won more than 6% of the votes in the first round of the recent election.

Parliament speaker Szymon Holownia strong criticized Braun, saying he would move to restrict his access to parliament grounds. “He does these things precisely to make himself famous,” he said.

“This is not the first time that Mr. Braun has committed vandalism on the premises of the Chancellery of the Sejm. I do not understand why there is still no indictment” in the earlier case, he added.