Polish government wins confidence vote after presidential election blow

By Barbara Erling and Alan Charlish

Poland's pro-European coalition government won a vote of confidence on Wednesday, an outcome that Prime Minister Donald Tusk hopes will give his cabinet new momentum after it was shaken by a setback in the presidential election.

Rafal Trzaskowski from Tusk's Civic Coalition was defeated by nationalist Karol Nawrocki in the June 1 runoff vote, unleashing recriminations from the smaller partners in the coalition government and casting doubt over the administration's future when a hostile president is able to wield veto powers.

Tusk's broad coalition has 242 lawmakers in the 460-seat lower house, or Sejm, meaning it was always likely to survive Wednesday's vote of confidence.

"I needed this vote because we were seeing... speculation that this government will not make it, that Tusk may be taken down, and you cannot work under such conditions," Tusk said.

However, he added that he still needed to regain voters' confidence: "We need to do much more."

In a debate ahead of the vote, Tusk listed higher defence spending and a cut in visa issuance for migrants as major achievements since he took power in December 2023, replacing the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), which backs Nawrocki.

Tusk also said his government would continue its efforts to roll back judicial reforms implemented by PiS that the European Union says undermine the courts' independence. Poland's outgoing president, Andrzej Duda, also a PiS ally, has so far blocked the government's attempts to reverse the judicial reforms.

Analysts say many Polish voters are disillusioned with the government's failure to deliver on promises including liberalising abortion laws, reforming the judiciary and raising the threshold at which Poles start paying taxes.

In an interview published on Wednesday, President-elect Nawrocki told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily that he would sign a law to raise the tax-allowance threshold and would even submit such a bill himself if the government did not.

In an apparent swipe at the government's failure to implement the 100 promises it made for its first 100 days, Nawrocki said he would "do (them) for Donald Tusk. Isn't that conciliatory?"

'NEW MOMENTUM'

The government had hoped for a Trzaskowski victory in the presidential election that would have given it the freedom to fully implement its agenda.

Facing questions about his leadership even from normally sympathetic media outlets, Tusk framed the vote of confidence as a chance to relaunch his 18-month-old government.

"I would like you to know that for the entire... coalition, this is to be a day of new momentum and I am convinced that you will live up to this task," he told his government ahead of Wednesday's vote.

Tusk has said there will soon be a government reshuffle, probably in July. Meanwhile, members of the administration say their coalition agreement will also need to be renegotiated, a process that could lead to conflict.

PiS has relished the situation.

Veteran party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski proposed that a "technical government" made up of experts should be put in place immediately to restore calm.

Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, the architect of the judicial reforms Tusk's government has sought to overhaul, was more direct.

"The lost presidential election is the end of Donald Tusk," he told reporters. "His fate is already sealed."