After 100 days, Poland’s Tusk faces questions on election promises

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk completed his first 100 days in office on Friday with solid public support, but he faces criticism for failing to deliver on several election promises.

He blames the delay primarily on the dire situation left by his predecessors.

With local and European elections looming, the fact that more than half of voters are dissatisfied with the pace of delivering on campaign promises has become a headache for a government whose election drew a strong vote among voters tired of eight years of turbulent nationalist rule. Hope for radical change has been raised. ,

“We can definitely see the pace of fulfilling election promises being slower than indicated before the election,” said Bartosz Takielski, 23, who works in a jewelry shop in central Warsaw.

“I’m not surprised. Since Poland became an independent country, there has never been a government that has kept its promises 100%.”

The former European Council president came to power in December on a promise to reverse democratic decline and improve relations with Poland’s Western allies, who he said Warsaw had eroded the rule of law and women’s and minority rights.

According to poll aggregators, Tusk’s KO remains ahead of PiS, while the three groups forming the coalition government together have contributed more than 50%. However, two recent surveys put PiS in first place.

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A government source told Reuters that the administration knew that decisions such as delaying the doubling of the tax-free threshold to 60,000 zlotys ($15,200) would be very unpopular, but due to the poor state in which PiS had left the public finances They were necessary.

Not everyone sees it that way.

“This is a lie,” PiS Chairman Marius Blaszczak told Reuters. “We left the public finances in good shape”.

Another factor has been the divisions within the broader pro-European coalition that put forward Tusk as head of government.

Right-wing Parliament Speaker Szymon Holaunia’s decision to postpone the debate on liberalizing abortion laws until after the first round of local elections angered New Left lawmakers.

“We won the (general) election and most of society is expecting us to try to change the law,” said Katarzyna Kotula, a New Left lawmaker who serves as equality minister in Tusk’s cabinet.

“You can’t hide behind the election. It can’t be used as an excuse.”

While critics say most of Tusk’s 100 promises for his first 100 days remain unfulfilled, he has fulfilled one key pledge – unlocking billions of EU funds that were frozen under PiS due to concerns over the rule of law. .

According to a joint poll conducted for RMF FM and Dziennik Gazeta Pravna daily, voters see this as their greatest achievement, with more than 60% of respondents saying that dealing with the issue was successful. They are also positive about how the government has improved Poland’s international relations.

However, lawyers have questioned why Brussels decided to free up the cash before the judicial reform was completed.

“(Unfreezing the funds) is very bad for Poland because now I don’t believe there is a big incentive to bring about the necessary changes,” said Krzysztof Izdebski, policy director of the Stefan Batory Foundation think-tank.

KO rejected such criticism, saying that the decision to unblock the funds resulted from a recognition in Brussels that Warsaw was willing to restore the rule of law despite resistance from supporters of the old government in powerful positions, such as PiS ally President Andrzej Duda. Was committed to.

“It is clear that there are obstacles such as the president, the behavior of some prosecutors or people in the judiciary system, but there were several meetings at the European level where progress and changes were shown,” said KO lawmaker Agnieszka Pomańska.

Some of the most radical changes implemented after the new government came to power were in the state media as Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz sought to overhaul outlets that critics said were not only open to government propaganda but also They have also become vehicles for spreading hate speech against minorities.

In an effort to block the changes, PiS lawmakers occupied the offices of state TV and the news agency, while the courts and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights have also questioned the legality of the ministry’s moves on public media.

The public is divided on the media reforms, with a Joint Opinion poll showing that 43.7% consider them successful while 36.9% say they were unsuccessful.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, additional reporting by Marek Strzelecki, editing by Angus MacSwan)

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