On a political “Super Saturday” in Poland, the liberal “Civic Platform” (PO) appointed Donald Tusk as its acting chairman.

Tusk, who is also elected head of the European People's Party until autumn 2022 and was previously President of the European Council and head of government in Warsaw, is returning to Poland and his old office after seven years in Brussels: he had the PO from 2003 to 2014 guided.

He wants to lead today's largest opposition party in parliament out of its deepest crisis to date. 

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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    At the same time, the delegates of the ruling national-conservative party “Law and Justice” (PiS) met to re-elect Jarosław Kaczyński as party chairman;

    according to his own statements this will be his last term of office.

    This means that the two parties, which were founded in 2001, are again led by their founders and co-founders.

    Tusk is 64, Kaczynski 72 years old. 

    Tusk calls for a fight against the government with no ifs or buts

    Before his election, Tusk delighted the congress participants with a fiery speech and attacks on the PiS government.

    He called on his followers not to "get used" to this government and to fight it without any ifs or buts.

    "The main message must be: When you see evil, fight it, don't ask for additional reasons!" He exclaimed. 

    He accused the government of serious errors in corona management, high levels of debt, nepotism and a foreign policy that had led Poland into an isolation that had been unprecedented since 1989.

    Despite the "idiotic political investments in Donald Trump's presidency", the PiS government also achieved miserable relations with the United States.

    On many issues, the PiS is “realizing a Russian agenda” and is anti-European. 

    Tusk also spoke critically about the situation of his own party since it lost power in 2015. “So many people in Poland have let their hands drop.

    Our energy has somehow fizzled out or has found its place elsewhere. ”That was probably an allusion to the new opposition force“ Poland 2050 ”, which Tusks PO ranked third in almost all surveys.

    The party founded by the publicist Szymon Hołownia was not mentioned at the entire congress.

    A former PO minister told the FAZ: "'Poland 2050' can be our competitor, but must never become an opponent."

    The PiS will probably not accept a new election

    The mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, is considered the loser at the PO Congress.

    He had vaguely signaled his own ambitions for the leadership, but on the other hand also announced a “campus” for August for the liberal forces in Masuria to discover themselves.

    Trzaskowski, still one of the deputy chairmen of the PO, is seen as a representative of the left wing of the party, while Tusk is assigned to the center. 

    Tusk was elected to one of the vice-bosses with 201 votes without a dissenting vote and thus leads the party temporarily as the oldest among them.

    The regular election of the chairman is to take place later.

    The previous party leader Borys Budka resigned and was also elected deputy leader with around 95 percent of the vote. 

    There will be no parliamentary elections in Poland until 2023.

    PO politician Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska told the FAZ that she did not expect the PiS to agree to an early election: “The PiS has placed many relatives on posts in state-owned companies, for whom their positions are a question of survival.

    If they lost their elections, they would suffer severe financial losses. "  

    A preliminary decision about the Kaczyński successor?

    Also on Saturday, the ruling PiS held a congress at which - unusual even for this party - no media were allowed.

    Jarosław Kaczyński was re-elected as expected;

    a result has not been announced for the time being.

    It was also expected that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, as a long-time bank director and a political lateral entrant, will for the first time receive a party office, that of a deputy chairman, in the next few days. 

    That could be a preliminary decision for the Kaczyński successor.

    The party leader himself praised the “historic” achievements of the government, but also made self-critical remarks such as these: “There is nepotism, it is not widespread, but we have to change that.” 

    Kaczyński signed a joint declaration on Friday with other right-wing party leaders in Europe - Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini, Santiago Abascal. According to the PiS boss, it should be a response to the conference on the future of Europe that the EU has just started and defend the community as a “union of sovereign peoples” against the threat of cultural “revolutions”.