WARSAW — One-time Polish political wunderkind Szymon Hołownia is emerging as a weak link who could threaten Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist pro-EU coalition.
Tusk has been trying to give his coalition some fresh momentum after the nationalist Karol Nawrocki won a tightly contested presidential election on June 1, and is planning a cabinet reshuffle next week.
Tusk’s big problem, however, is that the incoming right-wing president — backed by the Law and Justice party (PiS) — will be able to veto his key reforms, putting huge strain on the coalition.
This is where Hołownia, now parliament speaker, is proving a problem for Tusk. His Polska 2050 party has a crucial 31 seats that help Tusk keep his majority, but he has been accused of flirting with PiS.
Hołownia admitted to meeting top PiS officials earlier this month, including Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, for unspecified late-night talks in an apartment belonging to Adam Bielan, a PiS MEP.
This triggered intense speculation about his motives, but Hołownia denied claims PiS was offering to back him as a new prime minister in a government with PiS.
“I am one of the few politicians in Poland who — I emphasize — regularly meets with representatives of both deeply divided camps,” Hołownia said on X after news of his meeting with PiS became public.
“I firmly believe that — especially in times like these — politicians from different sides should talk to one another, or we’ll end up tearing each other apart. I consider this normal, not an exception,” Hołownia said.
Despite his insistence he wasn’t plotting with PiS, the late hour of the meeting and the location in a private apartment of a PiS official mean the controversy has stuck and Hołownia’s party is now slumping in the polls.
Polska 2050 came in at just 2.8 percent in a poll by United Surveys for Wirtualna Polska, a news website, published Wednesday. That is well below the 5 percent threshold a party needs to win seats in the parliament.
Before turning to politics, Hołownia was a media figure, known for co-hosting Poland’s version of the Got Talent series and for his work in Catholic media. He launched a 2020 presidential campaign as a centrist outsider on a pro-European, socially progressive and economically moderate platform.
He performed respectably in the 2020 election, gaining 14 percent of the vote and enough clout to start his own party.
This year, he fared much worse in the presidential contest, winning less than 5 percent of the vote. That has weakened him ahead of the cabinet reshuffle, as he trailed not just the far right’s Sławomir Mentzen but also extremist Grzegorz Braun, who is now facing a criminal investigation into alleged Holocaust denial.
In the 2023 general election, Hołownia’s Polska 2050 entered a centrist coalition with the agrarian PSL, forming the so-called Third Way group that contributed to the opposition bloc that unseated the PiS government. Hołownia was elected speaker of the parliament in November 2023.
Polska 2050 and PSL have subsequently parted ways.
Given that Hołownia is expected to hand over his post as speaker in November to a figure picked by fellow coalition party the New Left, the risk is that Polska 2050 will now be sidelined.
If a new election were held now, polls show the coalition would lose its majority to PiS if the latter goes for cooperation with the far right.
The post Former wunderkind Hołownia emerges as risky weak link for Tusk’s Polish coalition appeared first on Politico.
