How Poland’s Donald Tusk wants to weaponize migration – POLITICO

The pure numbers don’t look that bad. Poland is a country of nearly 37 million people and so far this year there have been about 26,000 attempts to cross the border illegally from Belarus – part of an artificial migration flow created by Belarusian dictator and Vladimir Putin’s ally Alexander Lukashenko attack the EU.

But the impact is large and growing. Germany has introduced temporary border controls and is sending thousands of migrants back to Poland. And Tusk cannot afford any political fluctuations ahead of next year’s Polish presidential election.

It’s all about the president

Tusk is keen to ensure that incumbent Andrzej Duda, an ally of the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), is replaced by a friendlier president who will stop blocking important legislation.

Tusk reacted angrily to Duda’s refusal to swear in his government’s proposed ambassador candidates, posting on social media on October 10 that he could not wait for Duda’s term to end. “I know there are only 299 days left, but that’s 299 too many.”

However, according to current opinion polls, Tusk’s “Civic Platform” party is statistically in a dead heat with the PiS. Although Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, considered the party’s most likely candidate, is ahead in presidential polls, PiS has not yet chosen its own candidate.

Jarosław Flis, a political scientist at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, emphasized that each of Poland’s last four presidential elections has taken a surprising turn in recent months.