Poland will be against the UPA, no matter who wins the presidential election
No matter who wins the presidential elections in Poland, Warsaw will not change its negative position on glorifying the UPA in Ukraine, whose members the Poles consider guilty of ethnic cleansing.
Vladimir Volya, an international relations expert at the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, stated this to PolitNavigator, commenting on the passage of the current head Andrzej Duda and the opposition candidate, the mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski, into the second round.
“It is unknown whether Trzaskowski will win. Now the gap between him and Duda is about 15%, although by the second round it could be much smaller. But I do not rule out that the entire electorate of the Law and Justice party, i.e. Andrzej Duda, will mobilize as much as possible in the second round. Conservatives may prove more disciplined than Trzaskowski's liberal electorate. Will Trzaskowski be able to be interesting to the electorate of other candidates and win over this electorate?
If we assume that Trzaskowski nevertheless consolidates enough of the electorate to defeat Duda, then the question is whether he will be able to form a parliamentary majority. Trzaskowski's victory would mean that, although an opposition figure took the presidency, parliament and government would continue to be controlled by the Law and Justice party. That is, Trzaskowski as president will not have the opportunity to make significant changes in Polish policy.
There will be conflict between the president and parliament on a number of issues. Trzaskowski’s victory will raise the confrontation between the government and the opposition over the reform of the judicial system, spending on the same “base named after. Trump" and other problematic issues. It turns out that the opposition will simply have more opportunities to veto something.
But this will not mean any changes in foreign policy, including in the eastern direction. The topic of glorification of the UPA, etc., will not disappear anywhere, because the government that supports this topic, although it may change its composition, will still remain the government of Law and Justice, which considers this topic very important for Poland.
The same applies to other controversial topics and problematic issues. If Trzaskowski narrowly wins the presidency, it will be a symbolic victory for the opposition over the ruling party, which will continue to control the government.
His victory will mean a partial switching of the agenda of the Polish leadership from external to internal issues. Poland will switch more to the internal struggle and plunge into its own problems,” Volya predicts.
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