It's the second coming of Donald Tusk, with implications well beyond Poland’s borders. Two months after a general election win marked by huge turnout comes a comeback for the centre-right leader. Tusk's first stint as prime minister was followed up by a move to Brussels where as president of the European Council, he found himself clashing with the leadership of his own country.
Now, after eight years of the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice Party, we ask how different Tusk II will be from Tusk I.
With a sitting president who wields veto powers, with PiS appointments in the courts and at the central bank, will it be change or political gridlock?
Speaking of gridlock, the vote in Poland's parliament coincides with the lifting of the month-long border blockade of Ukraine's biggest road crossing by Polish truckers and farmers. Will the change of leadership in Warsaw quell wavering support for Kyiv's war effort and the EU entry permit exemptions that go with it?
More broadly, which way for a one-time Soviet bloc nation whose economy has soared since joining the EU in 2004, but whose mostly Catholic electorate remains bitterly divided over culture wars? Was the tightening of one of the EU's strictest abortion laws the issue that swung the pendulum away from conservatives?
Produced by Charles Wente, Louise Guibert and Lila Paulou.
