Reliability is simply a valued currency in politics, which is very easy to squander and incredibly hard to earn. And not always and not for everyone, it works the same way. In a highly polarized public life, credibility plays a comparatively tiny function due to the fact that the tribes accept declarations of "their" politicians as a word revealed regardless of whether they change their mind. I don't gotta give examples – there are adequate of them in both major political groups – among PiS and KO fanatics.
It is different with politicians who are fighting for the attention of another electorates, and this is where the change and consequence of the fresh presidential elections, especially their first round, is taking place. Politicians who do not belong to the core of 1 or the another of the 2 tribes, who have been trying to dominate Polish politics for at least 20 years, must already be more afraid with their own credibility, and their deficiency of it may feel painful. For they must fight for the favour of voters outside the terrible duopol.
In a peculiar situation, hard from his point of view, is the ending of his second word president Andrzej Duda. And for a decade, he earned himself a surviving for this hard situation.
If you look at his presidency from a greater distance, you will see that the last period – no more than two, 3 last months, and especially the last weeks – is the time for Mr. Duda to have a peculiar boost, mainly rhetorical. This intensification contrasts with times radically, 1 might even say: grotesquely with what the president has done before. I do not know whether this was more clearly seen on any occasion than in the case of an interview the outgoing head of state gave to 3 online channels: the fresh Deal, the Open Conservation and the Jagiellonian Club.
Unfortunately, the interview was far besides short – 58 minutes with a circumstantial way of speaking by the President, who has a habit of getting lit up and emotional, and then he can talk about the subject for a very long time, not necessarily answering the question, is far besides small to ask about the balance of the presidency or the most crucial aspects of the current situation. I'm going to focus here on 1 subject where Mr. Duda hit himself with the strongest punch and the strongest of his credibility.
What can destruct it more than erstwhile a politician abruptly begins to say something other than he did, but he states that something was wrong, but completely does not take work for it? Just in case, I inform you that I've been demanding a settlement from the Law and Justice Department with 8 years of their rule. Yes, but the settlement is not that abruptly rhetoric begins to miss past decisions and events, but the guilty are not. After all, this is precisely the way 1 of the biggest political pests in the past of the 3rd Republic, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. He is the 1 who abruptly turns out to be a large opponent of the green order, at the same time not to mention a word of his own decisions and faults in this matter. Ba, he claims there were none, and he is simply a large hero of defending the Polish national interest.
Let's go back to the President's interview. The Ukrainian subject was raised in the beginning by Paweł Musik, president of the Jagiellonian Club. Unfortunately, specified interviews, for respective media, have their own specificity, which fundamentally excludes the questioning of the guest or indicating the shallowness of his statements. In this case, I have no pretension to the interviewers – apart from Paul, they were Krzysztof Ziemec and Casper Kita – but this is not a happy form. It allows a individual to decently uncontrollablely narrate his narrative, even if it is radically stretched or manipulated.
For this reason, no of the interviewers had the chance to announcement that in the case of Ukraine the president had initially utilized utmost manipulation and then began to say things for which in 2022 his own presidential minister Jakub Kumoch would call him Putin's propaganda resonator. The impression was amazing.
First, then, the president stated that transaction policy could not be conducted (he did not usage that exact wording, but that was the point of his words) erstwhile he decided to be or not be Ukraine. And I agree – only that this was the case for the first six months of the war at most. And then what? That's something the president didn't worry about.
Then came the most amazing words. First, “I believe that there were issues in which we could just show that we were not to be missed, and we did not, and that was a mistake.” We did not – what “we”? Mr. Kaczyński? And why would we show it just a small bit?
Then: “The Ukrainians and our allies believe that the airport in Rzeszów and our highways belong to them, as if it were theirs. It's not theirs, it's ours. So if anyone doesn't like it, we close it and do repairs. We are closing the airport in Rzeszów. And deliver Ukraine—the sea, the air, the parachutes, and think.” It was a communicative for which 3 or even 2 years ago could be confused with mud by the Deputy Minister of abroad Affairs of Mr Pawel Jabłoński, a proxy for something by Mr Stanisław Żaryn or by the presidential minister of Mr Kumoch.
But above all, this is precisely the other of what the president himself did! It looks as if Mr.Andrzew Sebastian Duda of July 2025, distinguished, in tasteful glasses, was a different Andrzej Sebastian Duda than the 1 from 2022, scolding Fr.Isakowicz Zaleski or falling into the arms of Mr.Volodymyr Zelenski, as in the tearful movie of the 3rd category.
I truly did not anticipate this – at the end of your second word the president will become the most bitter critic of his own presidency, or at least her Ukrainian theme. The only thing that was missing was the coming out during the interview and the president admitting that he truly held the office from 2022 to 2024, not himself.
There are 2 approaches to the extremist transformation of Mr. Duda. The first way, somewhat naive – with good will. possibly the president just understood what he was doing incorrect and now he'd like to do the right thing. Well, erstwhile he's out of his second word of office, he can only talk unproductively.
Second way – realistically. Realism states that Mr Andrzej Sebastian Duda is 53 years old and ends his presidency at the age erstwhile politicians usually have a lot to say. And he's threatened to end up like the erstwhile presidents, which is simply a complete out.
He most likely realizes that 1 of the most serious allegations against him is the right-wing electorate – this genuinely right-wing, not hard-core PiS electorate – is just a policy towards Ukraine and tries to re-tape even partially the terrible impression he leaves behind in this matter, most likely hoping that this will make it easier for him to find himself in a political arrangement after the end of office. In fact, in the interview specified a message appeared rather plainly – Mr Duda said that if there was a worthy task, he was ready. A politician who jumps like an ass from “Shrek” calling “take me, take me” always makes an embarrassing impression.
The president on the settlement with his Ukrainian policy has chosen the worst solution: neither has he kept the course consistently, nor has he openly acknowledged that the failure in this case is mostly his individual merit. Of course, he besides did not address the issue of the flag ideology, which becomes the authoritative message and foundation of the Ukrainian state, but he was not straight asked about it.
Mr. Andrzej Duda's presidency balance is weak. I, on a 10-point scale, give a maximum of 3.5 (I late wrote about this in “To Things”). But Ukrainian policy is not worth more than 2 points on this scale and no panic statements on the last consecutive will change that.
Luke Warches
