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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The author is associate professor of law and strategy at the Central European University in Vienna
Since taking power last month after his victory in Poland’s October elections, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has opted for a radical reckoning with the former populist regime. Early signs indicate that his bold approach holds substantial promise.
In May 2023, Tusk — then the opposition leader — promised to “clean up” Poland, ravaged by eight years of populist rule, “with an iron broom”. Many commentators saw this as mere posturing. But Tusk’s initial weeks in power have shown that he meant what he said.
Days after President Andrzej Duda, a staunch ally of the former ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), swore in Tusk’s government, Poland’s politicised public television station, notorious for its xenophobic, homophobic and racist messages, abruptly went dark. Tusk’s culture ministry summarily dismissed the station’s board and stopped broadcasts to prevent the outgoing leadership from inflaming tensions by airing live the takeover of the group’s headquarters.
Last week, Poland was stunned by the arrest of two prominent rightwing politicians, including the former interior minister. Both were duly sentenced for abuse of power but believed they could hide from justice in Duda’s presidential palace in Warsaw. The police, controlled by the Tusk government, proved them wrong. After Duda left his residency for a meeting, both officials were arrested.
Another struggle involves the prosecution service. A law passed a few months before the October election attempted to tie the hands of Adam Bodnar, Tusk’s justice minister and a former ombudsman. The law transferred Bodnar’s prosecutorial powers to a nominal “deputy”, a rightwing operative who cannot be sacked without Duda’s approval. But Bodnar declared the deputy’s appointment void. He also sent nearly 150 prosecutors from lucrative Warsaw posts back to their provincial offices and announced Poland’s accession to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
These decisive, if heavy-handed, actions come at a time when democrats globally are searching for strategies to deal with populists. In the US, for example, there is intense debate about whether the protracted legal cases against Donald Trump are serving to boost his campaign to return to the White House.
Perhaps Tusk’s approach offers hope. To be sure, the new government has attracted criticism with a vocal minority of experts questioning the procedural legality of some of the recent moves.
But the results are notable. The tone of public TV broadcasts has changed completely, while the former chief executive gave up the fight and resigned. Duda condemned the arrests at his residency, but at the same time appealed for calm. He also initiated a procedure to pardon the arrested politicians.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, this move is a victory for the rule of law. Duda’s pardon de facto nullifies his illegal attempt to absolve both officials in 2015. A path might be opening up for Poland to access the EU’s post-pandemic recovery funds, frozen because of the country’s rule-of-law issues.
Yet perhaps the most important sign of the strength of Tusk’s strategy has been the tepid response of PiS voters. Protests around the public TV headquarters gathered at most hundreds of people. A Warsaw march on January 11, widely promoted by the opposition, had tens of thousands of attendees but did not turn into the equivalent of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021.
While many things can go wrong with the “iron broom” approach, three reasons explain Tusk’s success so far. First, the populist electorate seems disengaged and demobilised since the new government took over. As this may not last for long, it is wise for Tusk’s government to confront its opponents early in its tenure.
Second, populist operatives are rarely heroic. Consider the desperate attempts of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, to avoid arrest by hiding in the US after his 2022 election defeat. Duda was affected by the pleas of the wives of the two sentenced officials, who seemed terrified that their husbands would serve long jail terms. He realised the only way to save his allies was to pardon them under lawful procedures.
Finally, today’s rightwing populists — from Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS leader — are intrinsically Darwinian in their worldview. They have built their political personas on the belief that might is right and that they can win by ruthlessly exploiting democracy’s inherent drift and indecisiveness. Tusk is proving that democracy can bite back. That will certainly not endear him to the rightwing electorate, but it can engender a measure of grudging respect and, ultimately, compliance.
