Poland’s biggest opposition grouping, the centre-right Civic Coalition (KO), was on par with the ruling right-wing radicals from Law and Justice (PiS), a new poll showed on June 23.

The poll, carried out by Kantar, showed KO and PiS at 32% of support each, suggesting that the opposition party may have caught new wind in its sails following a mass support rally for its leader Donald Tusk in early June in Warsaw that gathered an estimated 500,000 people. Tusk has been touring Poland tirelessly since, each of his open-air meetings gathering thousands.

Poles are heading to the polling stations in mid-October in en election that could see the incumbent PiS win an unprecedented third consecutive term if office. But PiS' campaign effort has faced some headwinds recently. 

The PiS-controlled parliament passed a hugely controversial law in late May establishing a special committee to probe “Russian influence” on Poland, a potentially handy tool to discredit Tusk. The EU and the US both criticised the law heavily.

The passing of the law likely boosted turnout at Tusk’s Warsaw rally, which PiS also attempted to portray as a hate event via an Auschwitz-themed video released on social media, another move that backfired after President Andrzej Duda, a PiS loyalist, criticised it.

In an attempt at a new opening, PiS’ chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski rejoined the government as a deputy prime minister on June 21. The chairman, his formal superior Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and the rest of the party’s top brass descended on the town of Bogatynia – squeezed between Czechia and Germany in southwestern Poland – last Saturday for a grand rally aimed at reinvigorating the campaign.

Unfortunately for the campaign strategists, the rally – as all other campaign events of the day – was all but eclipsed in the media by the alleged coup attempt in Russia.

Jockeying for  third position in the polls – and possibly the role of a kingmaker in the post-election talks about a new ruling coalition – are other opposition parties.

The far-right Konfederacja and another centre-right coalition of agrarians from PSL and liberals from Polska 2050 came in at 7% each in the Kantar poll. The Left polled at 6%.

Polish election rules stipulate that a party must clear 5% if it is to win any seats in the parliament. The threshold for party coalitions is 8%.

Kantar carried out the poll on June 22-23 on a representative sample of 1,000 adult Poles.