After weeks of intensive campaigning, and a huge voter turn-out followed by desperately tight exit polls, Karol Nawrocki edged victory in Poland’s second-round presidential election on 1st June.
The narrow margin of the radical-right historian’s win over his rival, the liberal, pro-European Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski – 50.89% to 49.11% – is striking evidence of Poland’s polarisation.
“There are completely different visions of what democracy is, what the state is, how society should work,” says Krzysztof Izdebski, a lawyer specialising in access to public information. Izdebski is legal and policy officer at Civitates’ foundation partner, the Stefan Batory Foundation, which works to build an open, democratic society that protects the rights of all citizens in Poland.
He stresses that those who voted for the controversial Nawrocki – who was backed by Poland’s far-right opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS) and drew explicit support from US President Trump’s administration – are not generally opposed to democratic principles: “We see from public opinion polls that Polish people are supportive of human rights and democracy. But of course, the devil is in the details.”
Nevertheless, Izdebski says it’s abundantly clear that “trust in the rule of law and what’s understood as the liberal model of democracy has decreased tremendously regardless of who’s in power.”
As such, restoring it – not only in Poland but in much of Europe and beyond – is one of the burning issues of our age, as is finding ways to depolarise our divided societies.
“…trust in the rule of law and what’s understood as the liberal model of democracy has decreased tremendously regardless of who’s in power.”
Detached from reality
Izdebski believes that grassroots work is essential: “This doesn’t mean politicians from Warsaw going to rural villages to try to convince people they care, which can be very inauthentic.”
The Stefan Batory Foundation has worked for years with hundreds of people around Poland, including local governments, local NGOs and non-formal groups “who want to achieve something which will transform their city or village… There’s profit from collaboration rather than being against each other.”
Izdebski cites concrete examples of how to deepen engagement with local communities.
“In Poland, for instance, there are lots of arguments around the climate crisis. Opinion polls show it’s very polarising. But on the local level if you turn it to caring for the natural environment, something that you can see and feel – the river that runs by your village, the forest that you see from your windows – that’s another discussion completely.”
All too often though, he says policies are shaped in ways which mean they’re far removed from peoples’ lives. This includes recent attempts by the Polish government to restore the rule of law, after a decade in which it was methodically undermined.
“The rule of law is not how you select judges or how you construct the Constitutional Tribunal, but how you improve peoples’ everyday experience with the judiciary, so that it’s faster and more effective. But the government has focused on high-level, abstract ideas which are detached from peoples’ everyday experiences.”
Safeguarding civil society’s credibility
Izdebski believes that democrats need stronger narratives and language to connect with disillusioned and dissatisfied citizens. They also need to end the ‘democratic hypocrisy’ – a concept academics Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas explore in their book, How to Rig an Election – that provides a fertile ground for the populist right in Poland and elsewhere.
“Politicians who talk about the rule of law and democracy but only uphold those values when it suits them are seen as hypocritical,” he says. Conversely, consistency in living up to liberal democratic ideals can rebuild trust in the state and its institutions.
Yet it’s not just the integrity and authenticity of political leaders that matters, but civil society’s.
“Organisations which are working to protect democracy can’t be seen as political actors, which hasn’t always been the case in Poland recently. We have to stay non-partisan. Politicians have power. Businesses have money. And we have our credibility,” he says.
Maintaining this credibility will be crucial if Poland is to be resilient in the face of its looming threats.These threats are both external – from Russia – and internal, with the possibility of significant institutional roadblock, given that the new President has the power to veto legislation.
Whatever the challenges ahead, restoring faith in the institutions of democracy will be a key way to overcome them, and a vital step towards healing the divisions currently blighting Polish society.
Main photo by prananta haroun on Unsplash
