The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk plans to request a vote of confidence in parliament soon. He announced this after his pro-European party member Rafal Trzaskowski lost the presidential elections to the nationalist Karol Nawrocki on Sunday.
The result was a major setback for Tusk. The Polish president has a largely ceremonial role but can block government decisions.
Tusk suffered greatly from the outgoing president Andrzej Duda of the PiS party. Nawrocki is also supported by that party. The expectation is that Nawrocki will continue on the same footing as his predecessor. This means that the current government can be opposed by the conservative opposition for the remainder of its term.
It is not yet known when the vote of confidence will take place. It is also unclear what should happen after that. Tusk’s broad coalition, in principle, has a majority in parliament.
It is possible that Tusk is asking for the vote to show the rest of Poland that his government still has the trust and support of parliament. It could also be that he wants to dispel concerns that Trzaskowski’s loss could expose rifts within the coalition government, in which parties from left to center-right participate.
Elections were neck-and-neck
In the second round of the Polish presidential elections, Nawrocki competed against the liberal and pro-European candidate Trzaskowski, who is the mayor of Warsaw.
Initially, Trzaskowski was narrowly in the lead in the exit polls, but Nawrocki came alongside during the night. On Monday morning it became clear that the conservative candidate is the winner with just under 51 percent of the votes.