Poland Goes to the Polls Next Year – What Are the Main Political Fault Lines?
For a long time, Polish politics was shaped by competition between two blocs of roughly similar size: the centre and the far right. The next parliamentary election, however, is likely to be different, as the political formation to the right of the centre is becoming increasingly fragmented.
Ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election, Polish politics is increasingly taking shape around two competing political scenarios, while the traditional party system is also undergoing transformation, the Polish media report. One of the new features of the current situation is that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s most important political opponent is no longer primarily Jarosław Kaczyński, but President Karol Nawrocki, who has openly adopted a confrontational stance towards the government since taking office and has vetoed a number of laws initiated by the cabinet.
Nawrocki does not have his own presidential party comparable to the Civic Coalition, but his role on the opposition right is becoming increasingly important, partly because the former dominance of Law and Justice (PiS) has weakened. The split within PiS, the strengthening of Mateusz Morawiecki’s political position and the advance of the Confederation are dividing the right into several competing formations. At the next election, the question will therefore not only be who can replace the government, but also who can lead and unite this camp.
Nawrocki is in a particularly distinctive position. If the right-wing parties were to win a parliamentary majority together in 2027, the president could play a significant role in forming a governing coalition, especially if the majority were narrow and the government needed the support of smaller parties. The author of the article cited above therefore also outlines a scenario in which a PiS–Confederation government is formed but does not have a stable majority and would periodically need Nawrocki’s support. In such a situation, the president’s bargaining position could be particularly strong. At present, however, this is only a political scenario, not a settled process.
An early election in 2027 is theoretically possible as well, but this would require a weakening of the governing coalition and the fulfilment of certain constitutional conditions. According to the article, it is currently more likely that parliament will adopt the 2027 budget and that the election will take place at the regular time. For Donald Tusk, meanwhile, the main problem is that the parties in the current governing coalition would find it difficult to reproduce their 2023 result on their own. The Civic Coalition would need to maintain support of roughly 30 per cent, while economic developments, the state of public finances and the international economic environment could all affect public perceptions of the government.
The second challenge is to keep his own side together rather than dealing with the opposition right. According to the article, it would be advantageous for the Civic Coalition to form an electoral alliance with one of its current coalition partners, above all the New Left, because under Poland’s electoral system the parties’ vote shares and their ability to cross the 5 per cent and 8 per cent thresholds have a significant impact on how many parliamentary seats are obtained from a given number of votes.
A third important factor could be how many smaller parties remain below the electoral threshold. If a significant number of votes were effectively “lost” because they went to parties that failed to enter parliament, this could increase the seat shares of the larger parties. This was demonstrated by the 2015 election, when PiS won an outright parliamentary majority with 37.6 per cent of the vote, partly because several smaller political forces failed to enter the Sejm. For Tusk, therefore, the question is not simply how many votes the Civic Coalition receives, but also what electoral alliances are formed and how many votes go to parties that ultimately fail to win seats. The author therefore argues that one of the key questions in the 2027 election may be whether a centrist political formation or electoral alliance can once again emerge to act as an intermediary between the larger blocs, as the Third Way did in 2023.
The current position of the Polish People’s Party (PSL) and Poland 2050 is considerably weaker than it was three years ago, making a revival of such an arrangement uncertain. Overall, therefore, this is not simply a personal contest between Tusk and Nawrocki: behind it lies a broader realignment of the Polish party system. In one possible scenario, the right could win a parliamentary majority despite its further fragmentation, making Nawrocki a decisive player in the formation of a new government. In another, Tusk’s governing camp could reorganise its electoral alliances in a way that allows it to retain its ability to govern despite the divided right.
