Tusk Government Wins Confidence Vote in Poland

On Wednesday, the centrist government of Poland won a vote with confidence in Parliament, avoiding political unrest for the largest country in the eastern flank of the European Union and a solid supporter of Ukraine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the legislators last week to approve his government, hoping to reaffirm his authority after the Victory of a political opponentKarol Nawrocki, a nationalist historian, in a presidential election this month.

During the vote, 243 legislators voted in favor of Mr. Tusk and 210, which gave him a majority in the lower room of the Parliament of 460 members.

Addressing parliament on Wednesday, Tusk recognized that Mr. Nawrocki’s victory during the presidential vote would create “greater than expected” challenges. But, referring to the limited functions and largely of the president, he insisted that the result of this election “does not in any way reduced our responsibility, our duties or the scope of our power or our skills”.

In an effort to win the votes of more conservative legislators in his coalition, Mr. Tusk promised to continue to limit immigration, claiming that Poland would reduce in half the number of visas for potential migrants in Africa and Asia.

This, he said, was necessary because the previous party, law and justice and theoretically anti-immigrant, had authorized hundreds of thousands of migrants thanks to corrupt visa regimes which are currently subject to a criminal investigation.

Mr. Tusk’s victory Wednesday in the vote of trust is a blow for the law of law and justice, which hoped for a possible return to power in the event of the first elections. A vote against Mr. Tusk’s government would have forced him to resign after about Only 18 months in power.

Brought down by Mr. Nawrocki’s victory in the presidential survey and under pressure from the law and justice to resign, Mr. Tusk recognized the “gravity of the moment”, but, by playing a vote of confidence, he insisted that “we do not intend to take a step back.”

Mr. Nawrocki, like Andrzej Duda, the outgoing president, is closely aligned with law and justice, and his victory over a liberal candidate supported by Mr. Tusk is likely to harden the dead end between a presidency and a government drawing in opposite directions.

The Polish president does not have his say in the staging of politics, but has the right of veto on the legislation adopted by the Parliament, a prerogative which hampered Mr. Tusk’s government to carry out his program. This includes the repair of relations with the European Union and the inversion of changes in the law and the justice made during its power which compromises the independence of the judiciary and anything except abortion.

Law and justice lost its parliamentary majority during an election in 2023, but the coalition of the legislators that Mr. Tusk gathered to form a government was a fractive alliance made up of liberals, centrists and conservatives who shared few common grounds other than opposition to law and justice.

Anatol Magdziarz Contributed reports.