Poland’s parliament elected Donald Tusk, the leader of the new majority that emerged after the October election, as the country’s new prime minister on December 11.

The vote marks the end of the two-term rule of the radical right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. PiS’ last-ditch bid to canvass a parliamentary majority failed on the same day, as the party’s PM-designate Mateusz Morawiecki lost a confidence vote by 190 votes to 266.

The new PM-designate will deliver a programme speech on Tuesday outlining his government’s plan for the new parliamentary term. A confidence vote will follow before the new government is sworn in by President Andrzej Duda on December 13, Tusk said after meeting Duda in the parliament shortly after the vote.

Tusk will head a coalition government of four parties: his own Civic Coalition (KO), the Third Way – itself a coalition of the agrarian party PSL and centrist grouping Polska 205– and the Left.

Tusk won the vote designating him as the next PM with 248 votes in favour and 201 against.

His government will need to address many woes that the PiS administration neglected, ignored, or deliberately attacked like the rule of law or freedom of the public media. Mending ties with the EU is another top priority.

The Tusk government will also have to make sure that economic growth – which showed some early signs of recovery in the third quarter – is sustained while there is no repeat of earlier policies that had paved the way for PiS to win power back in 2015.

Following the vote, Tusk thanked his family for their support during the excruciating campaign that eventually led his party to build an anti-PiS coalition that could take over power.

“I also wanted to thank you [PiS] because no one has put so much effort, no one has put in so much work so that Polish men and women can see from your media every day what you have done to Poland,” Tusk also said.

PiS’ leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński snapped in response, taking the floor without a permission from the Speaker, telling Tusk: “I know one thing. You’re a German agent.”

PiS and its media did spend a great amount of time during the campaign telling their supporters that Tusk’s becoming a PM means subjugating Poland to Germany, the alleged force behind the drive to make the EU a superstate.

The new PM is about to manage a diverse coalition ranging from PSL conservatives to the Left, each with their own set of objectives – a home truth of which the Left reminded Tusk during the debate on his candidacy.

The new and increasingly popular speaker of the parliament, Szymon Holownia (Polska 2050), is widely considered a strong contender in the presidential election in 2025, a plan that will likely clash with the Civic Coalition’s. That also sounded clear during the debate from a Polska 2050 representative.

The coalition also does not have enough votes to overrule the veto powers of President Andrzej Duda, who is a PiS ally and who said last month that he would use it whenever he considered the new government would try to dismantle the key achievements of PiS.

PiS also has people planted across key institutions like the public media, prosecution, courts, and – most importantly – in the Constitutional Tribunal.