Tusk’s Civic Coalition has steered a centrist course between economic liberalism and social conservatism. It has, however, alienated many Catholic parents by replacing optional religious education with compulsory citizenship classes, which critics claim are vehicles for LGBT propaganda.
Last year the PIS candidate Karol Nawrocki was elected president, supported by Donald Trump. He has made full use of his constitutional veto and stirred up a simmering historical dispute with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky – to the dismay of their allies and the delight of Vladimir Putin.
Since its defeat three years ago, the Polish Right has fragmented. PIS itself has split into a technocratic faction led by former prime minister Morawiecki and those loyal to Jarosław Kaczyński, now 78 but unwilling to relinquish control.
Further to the Right, meanwhile, two parties with confusingly similar names, Confederation and the Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP), are gaining ground. Confederation enjoys up to 15 per cent support for its libertarian nationalism. The KKP is led by Grzegorz Braun: a pro-Russian, violently anti-Semitic, reactionary Catholic monarchist. He sees Poland as “a Russo-German condominium under a Jewish-American trusteeship”. But he still attracts one in 10 voters.