One year after the election that brought it to power, Poland’s four-party ruling coalition — comprising a wide range of political views from conservative Catholics to progressive leftists — still appears to be operating at half-speed.

The coalition, which only officially took power two months after the election, has yet to mark a full year in office. It remains constrained by President Andrzej Duda, a close ally of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, and by legal obstacles left by PiS.

Duda is partly responsible for the coalition's inability to pass some of its anticipated legislation. Prime Minister Donald Tusk does not have enough votes in parliament to override a presidential veto, leading to delays in key reform plans.

The central reform, still being blocked due to Duda’s opposition, is restoring the rule of law.

In addition to vetoing or threatening to veto key legislation, Duda has also delayed the implementation of bills passed by the new government by sending them to the Constitutional Tribunal for review.

The tribunal, in its current form, is a remnant of PiS’s tenure and represents a challenge for the Tusk government. It is effectively stalling reforms while claiming adherence to the same rule of law principles that, according to Tusk, PiS had undermined.

This has led Tusk to acknowledge that — ironically — restoring the rule of law after PiS’s eight-year rule might require questionable measures. 

“I am going to make a decision fully aware of the risk that not all of them will meet the rule of law criteria from the perspective of purists,” Tusk said in September at a conference dedicated to “ways out of the constitutional crisis”.

There also is disappointment among the government’s backers about its being too slow in going after PiS — especially that Tusk and his allies had repeatedly called PiS thieves or an “organised crime group”.

The Tusk government has also stumbled on issues where voters expected it to at least challenge Duda, even if only to provoke a veto that could potentially mobilise support in the upcoming presidential election in May.

The coalition is divided over the liberalisation of Poland’s strict abortion laws. It has failed to pass even a modest reform to decriminalise assistance with abortions, after the Polish People’s Party (PSL) voted against the proposal.

“It is a fact that we cannot ignore: there is no majority in the Polish parliament in favour of the kind of right to legal abortion that we have talked about here and that we have agreed on here with you,” Tusk said in reaction.

Last week, Tusk angered the Left faction of his coalition by announcing plans to revise Poland’s asylum policies in response to the “hybrid war” being waged by Belarus, with support from Moscow, along the country’s north-eastern border.

This falls against the backdrop of Russia's war in Ukraine, a major source of tension in Poland because of the worries that Poland could face a similar fate in a few years but also due to the growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment in the country.

The government eventually adopted a new migration strategy, with ministers from the Left abstaining.

Tusk, riding a wave of rising anti-migration sentiment, also secured support for his proposal at the EU level, despite earlier warnings from the European Commission that suspending the right to asylum — a fundamental human right — was ill-advised.

“The right to asylum is being exploited, entirely contrary to its true purpose. It is being used instrumentally [in a way that] has nothing to do with human rights,” Tusk said.

Despite the media furore that the prime minister’s missteps invariably provoke, polls show the government still has quite a lot of credit with the people who voted for it in October 2023.

A comprehensive poll by Ipsos for the More in Common NGO showed on October 15 — the exact anniversary of the election — that the coalition’s voters still hope the government will find agency after defeating PiS in the presidential election next May.

A risk for Tusk is that the coalition government needs to keep those hopes alive and not let impatience, disappointment and anger — exactly the emotions the Ipsos poll asked people about — take over before Poles head to the polling stations in May. But if the — still only budding — disappointment creeps in more decisively, the presidential contest could turn tricky.

Winning the presidency is Tusk’s immediate concern since a PiS president would waste no time before derailing the government’s agenda, threatening the break-up of the coalition which would force Tusk to face a snap election in which winning enough votes to be able to reject presidential vetoes would be an extremely tall order.

A year on, Tusk’s government remains largely a promise. While this was enough during the campaign, it now faces a complex balancing act. The coalition must avoid alienating voters in yet another polarising campaign ahead of another pivotal election, while navigating the constraints that threaten to fuel the very alienation it seeks to prevent