Many voters of junior partners in Polish ruling coalition dissatisfied with government

Many supporters of the two junior partners in Poland’s ruling coalition are dissatisfied with the work of the government, a new poll has found. By contrast, voters of the main ruling group, Civic Coalition (KO), are overwhelmingly happy with its work.

The results come shortly after – and shed further light on – Sunday’s European elections, in which the centrist KO performed strongly but its two coalition partners – the centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) and The Left (Lewica) – achieved relatively poor results.

Meanwhile, the same poll shows that supporters of both opposition parties – the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) – are generally happy with their performance. But independent voters strongly favour the government over the opposition.

The findings come from an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of news outlets OKO.press and TOK FM. The poll asked supporters of KO, Third Way, and The Left how they “assess the actions of [Prime Minister Donald] Tusk’s government in the context of expectations and election promises“.

Among supporters of Tusk’s KO, 89% are satisfied and only 9% said they are disappointed. By contrast, the figures for Third Way were 46% and 32% respectively, and for The Left 53% and 36%.

Meanwhile, supporters of PiS and Confederation were asked how they assess the actions of their respective parties since the 15 October 2023 elections that saw Tusk’s coalition obtain a parliamentary majority and then form a government that replaced PiS in office.

Almost three quarters (74%) of PiS voters are satisfied with their party while 18% are dissatisfied. For Confederation, 85% are satisfied and only 8% dissatisfied.

Finally, the poll asked respondents who said they hold no party affiliation whether they assessed the ruling coalition or the opposition more favourably. The proportion choosing the ruling coalition, 42%, was significantly higher than those picking the opposition, 10%.

Ipsos’s findings appear to echo Sunday’s European election results, which saw KO perform strongly, winning more votes than any other group. Meanwhile, though PiS finished second, narrowly behind KO, it actually won a higher share of the vote than at either April’s local elections or October’s parliamentary ones.

Meanwhile, Confederation surged into third place with 12.1% of the vote, well above the 7% if won at the last two elections. By contrast, Third Way’s vote share fell dramatically to 6.9% (from over 14% at the last two elections), while The Left received only 6.3% of the vote, down from over 8.6% in October.

Those results have led to rumours of discontent within Third Way and The Left about their position in the ruling coalition, which is dominated by KO. There have also been reports of tensions between the two parties that make up Third Way, Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) and the Polish People’s Party (PSL).

Six conclusions from Poland’s EU elections:

1. This was not a victory against the right
2. Tusk swallowing his coalition partners
3. PiS down but not out
4. Low-key campaign boosts far right
5. Poles rally to figurehead
6. Voter fatigue or return to norm? https://t.co/7K4W6QdnBK

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 10, 2024

PSL MP Jarosław Rzepa said this week that he “thinks there is no point in continuing the [Third Way] coalition as it has been so far”. He suggested that PSL should consider running alone in future elections but did not rule out continuing with the Third Way if improvements can be made.

However, the leader of Poland 2050, Szymon Hołownia, said after the European elections that he still believes “the Third Way remains a good project”. But he added that “we need to work significantly on mobilising the electorate who did not vote. Clearly we didn’t do our job”.

One of the leaders of The Left, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, meanwhile, admitted that his group had “made a lot of mistakes” and had to try “to be more expressive in this government, to fight harder for the things we promised during the [parliamentary] election campaign”.

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Main image credit: SUW (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.