This past week Poland’s PiS government suffered its first blow since coming to power nearly a year ago. In what amounted to a complete U-turn following a dramatic parliamentary session in the wake of the Black Monday protest, PiS MPs struck down a proposed bill to ban abortion. Domestic and international media were quick to hail this as a victory for the anti-government protest movement. More so, PiS became divided over the issue as 32 MPs defied party discipline to vote against the bill.
It was an optimistic note in a region where illiberal populism and authoritarian governments are on the rise. During the same week in Hungary, a referendum challenging an EU plan to resettle refugees was held in which 98% of voters endorsed Orbán’s FIDESZ government’s anti-refugee and xenophobic stance. [...]
Such affinities have prompted many comparisons between the two countries in the past year. While there are admittedly some similarities the differences are crucial. Poland has not seen its Constitution changed and its civil liberties restricted as in Hungary. There is also no far right political force in Poland comparable to Hungary’s Jobbik, though Poland is seeing a rise of far right and xenophobic sentiments in particular among its youth.
More so, though PiS has taken over the state-run media, there are no oligarchsin Poland who could buy up independent media and silence it as in Hungary. Internationally, PiS is much weaker than FIDESZ which can count on support from the European People’s Party, while PiS lost its biggest ally in the EU arena, the British Conservative Party, after the Brexit vote. In addition, PiS’ arch-nemesis, Donald Tusk, is President of the European Council. And PiS’ more-than-average Polish Russophobia rules out any Orbán-style flirtation with Putin.
In Poland’s current situation, rhetoric matters more than actions. Of all PiS’ social-economic electoral promises it has only managed to implement a watered-down version of its child support programme. That alone has put enormous strain on the budget pushing the deficit to its largest since 1989. [...]
While PiS’ victory in last year’s elections produced a non-coalition government for the first time since 1989, PiS is much weaker than it looks despite its parliamentary majority. This majority rests on merely five seats in parliament (235 MPs out 460 in total) and is in fact made up of PiS in alliance with two smaller parties, Polska Razem and Solidarna Polska, which had rallied together with PiS for the elections. Both parties, each having nine MPs in the PiS bloc, are headed and represented by former political secessionists.
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