Bodnar had come under fire for the slow pace of fixing the judiciary after the previous Law and Justice (PiS) party government and prosecuting former officials facing allegations of abuse of power and corruption. This became a major cause of frustration for supporters of Tusk’s four-party coalition, which won power in late 2023.
The sense that the government was adrift was one of the factors that led to the defeat of Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of Tusk’s Civic Platform party in the presidential election, to PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing hardliner.
“The time of post-election trauma ends today,” Tusk said, admitting it will be a “difficult road” for his government to regain its footing.
The big winner in the reshuffle is Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, a conservative, who now becomes a deputy prime minister. This is part of a broader shift to the right by Tusk as he tries to block the rise of PiS and the far-right Confederation party by restoring border controls to clamp down on illegal immigration.
The prime minister pledged his refreshed Cabinet will focus on “order, security, and the future,” framing these priorities in the context of “aggressive Russia and Belarus.”
“We live in a black swan reality, but we won’t let it surprise us,” Tusk said, vowing to eliminate Russian and Belarusian efforts to destabilize Poland.