Poland: Presidential election preview

Disclaimer: This article does not reflect the political preferences of the authors nor the institutions they are associated with. The article summarises key points from the election platforms as they were presented officially by the candidates. The general assessment of their fiscal balance implications is focused exclusively on fiscal balance, supply of new debt and its pricing. It mirrors the political declarations of the candidates only and not their implementation ability.

This note discusses the key priorities of the social and economic platforms of candidates in the forthcoming presidential elections in Poland on 28 June. The most probable outcome of the first round is a victory for the incumbent President Andrzej Duda, supported by the governing party Law and Justice (PiS). The second strongest candidate is Rafał Trzaskowski from the Civic Platform (or Civic Coalition recently re-named). However, Duda is likely to get less than 50% of the vote in the first round and as such, a run-off between the top two candidates should take place on 12 July.

According to the latest polls, Duda and Trzaskowski are tied to win the second round. However, the momentum in polls favours Civic Platform's Trzaskowski, who is catching up with incumbent Duda. Still, polls show that in the first round, Trzaskowski (and Duda) will struggle to achieve a higher level support than that reached in the 2019 general election. The key factor to watch in the first round is whether the main candidates are able to effectively attract votes outside their core electorate. In the run-off, Duda is set to enjoy some support from supporters of the far-right candidate Krzysztof Bosak, while supporters of the other four candidates are likely to vote largely for Trzaskowski.

In the Polish political set-up, the President of the Republic can demonstrate his power by blocking government initiatives rather than promoting his own economic policy ideas. Electing any candidate other than the PiS-aligned incumbent would significantly complicate the speed at which laws are passed by the current government. The President can present his own legal initiatives, but they need to be passed through Parliament. During the pandemic, Duda proposed several initiatives to fight the crisis. However, only those preferred by the government were introduced into law, for example, a solidarity benefit to the newly unemployed.

The potential lack of agreement with the governing PiS majority would further constrain fiscal expansion if any of Duda’s rivals were elected, with the exception of Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who has presented far-reaching tax cuts and voluntary social security contributions, which would inevitably translate into a huge fiscal gap. None of the candidates have proposed a suspension of the flagship social benefits such as 500+, which were introduced by the current administration in recent years.

The energy policy (i.e. coal exit) and green transition, and to some extent health care policy, are important points in the election platforms of all candidates, except Duda and Bosak. Duda’s re-election would preserve current government policies. All other candidates seem to be in line with - or even more ambitious than - the European Green Deal strategy, and see Poland’s coal exit within the next two or three decades. However, none of the candidates presented new ideas which could materially help reduce pollution / emissions and boost growth at the same time.

Note: Because our assessment of the fiscal balance implications of the election platforms became a subject of unjustified interpretations and contrasts with our intentions, we removed this part from the article. A careful reading of our brief analysis indicates full impartiality of judgments included there. We do not wish our article to be a subject of further misinterpretations or misleading conclusions by persons who have not read the analysis.