The Populist Right Goes Down to Defeat in Poland

Was it a return to democracy? Or an expression of the democracy that’s been there all along?

The leader of Civic Coalition, Donald Tusk celebrates the exit poll results during Poland's Parliamentary elections on October 15, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. (Photo by Omar Marques/Getty Images)

For today, I had an idea for another brooding post about the situation in the Middle East, and specifically about the “decolonialist” left’s deranged response to the events of October 7. But then news broke on Sunday afternoon that exit polls in Poland’s parliamentary elections showed a defeat for the conservative-populist Law and Justice party, which has governed the country since 2015. That’s a bit of rare good news for the topics I write about here, so I’ve put my original idea aside. Unfortunately, I’ll likely get other chances to return to my earlier plans over the coming weeks.

One Story About the Populist Right

As I said, I’m cheered by election results in Poland. I’m a liberal who prefers liberal policies on most issues, so I’m pleased when liberals win elections. Though Law and Justice won more votes than any other single party, Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition and a pair of smaller, ideologically allied parties appear more capable of forming a coalition government. That would end eight years of rule for the conservative populists. (The office of President will continue to be held by Andrzej Duda, who has close ties to Law and Justice, however. That could slow down and complicate the process of forming a center-left government.)

But how should we understand this outcome? Most of my fellow liberals and critics of the right-populist turn are portraying the election results as a highly significant defeat for political authoritarianism and a victory for democracy. That elevates the significance of the vote well beyond a normal election. Rather than gauging public opinion on a range of issues and translating it into representation, the election was ostensibly a referendum on whether Poland would reaffirm its identity as a democracy or continue what many of my academic and journalistic colleagues describe as “democratic backsliding” toward dictatorship.

As evidence for their interpretation, these colleagues point to a number of developments since Law and Justice assumed office: Reforms to the country’s courts, making them less independent; strengthened ties to the Catholic Church, including reinforced restrictions on abortion and support for the conservative side of other social issues; sharp hostility to immigration and the European Union’s migrant policies; and finally, the assertion of control over state media, which turned it away from the ideal of political independence and toward a role as a de facto propaganda arm of the ruling party.

These reforms led to rancorous clashes between Poland and the EU, and aligned the country with Hungary and its even-more intrepid right-populist president Viktor Orbán. Assuming Tusk (a former prime minister of Poland and former president of the European Council) and his center-left allies do in fact displace Law and Justice, it will mark a dramatic change of direction—away from Hungarian authoritarianism, and back toward democracy.

That’s a powerful case. But I’d like to suggest there’s another way to understand what’s going on in Poland and elsewhere that’s truer to the world we now inhabit.