Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and its coalition allies  pushed through a proposal on August 17 for a national referendum on a number of emotion-stirring issues to be held on the election day of October 15.

In a trick straight out of Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban's playbook, PiS wants voters to answer four questions on policies that the ruling PiS party claims Donald Tusk's opposition Civic Coalition (KO) will attempt to implement if it wins the election. 

The ruling party hopes that pairing the referendum with the election will give it an edge over the opposition, as it will mobilise their voters, who will respond positively to the questions and logically and emotionally follow up with a vote for them. 

The questions cover the privatisation of state companies, the barrier along Poland’s border with Belarus, raising the retirement age, and hosting migrants under the migration pact agreed at the EU level earlier this year.

“Do you support the sale of state enterprises to foreign entities, leading to the loss of control by Poles over strategic sectors of the economy?” is going to be the first question on the referendum ballot.

“Do you support raising the retirement age, including restoring the increased retirement age to 67 for women and men?” is the second question, which builds on a highly controversial decision by Tusk's government to raise the retirement age to 67 for both sexes, a move undone by PiS to make it 65 for men and 60 for women.

The third question is “Do you support receiving thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in accordance with the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy? “

The final question – which also is related to the third one - is “Do you support removing the barrier on Poland’s border with Belarus?” 

Immigration has been one of the leading themes of the campaign so far, with PiS posing as the force to rely on for curbing the influx of asylum seekers via the EU’s relocation mechanism  and through the border with Belarus. 

Poland says Minsk has been carrying out a “hybrid war” against Poland by flying in migrants to push them at gunpoint to the border. The Polish government has rushed 10,000 troops to the border to highlight the issue, as well as protect the country from any incursion by Russia's Wagner group, which is now in Belarus.

Poland has objected to the EU's relocation mechanism for asylum seekers, over which it was outvoted, though Brussels has pointed out that Warsaw will likely not need to take any, given the number of Ukrainian refugees in the country.

The opposition has lambasted the referendum plan, painting it as an attempt by PiS to circumvent campaign financing laws though using state funds to promote the referendum questions. 

“For eight years you have not organised a single referendum … because you don't give a damn about the [people]'s opinion,” Krzysztof Paszyk of the agrarian PSL party said during the heated debate on the referendum motion in the parliament. 

The MP referred to PiS’ selling the referendum plan as making politics based on asking what people think.

“What are you afraid of, democratic opposition? If you really are so democratic, why don't you want the sovereign [people] to have a say?” said Marek Ast, PiS’ rapporteur for the referendum motion.

The motion eventually passed with 226 MPs in favour, 210 against and seven abstentions.

PiS and its media are trying to make the referendum a campaign tool against Tusk in the first place. The former PM and former president of the European Council has been described as the “biggest threat to Poland’s security” by PiS, which paints Tusk as an agent of Germany and EU elites. 

Tusk responded by saying he would “cancel the referendum out,” by which he likely meant getting his party voters to boycott the referendum.

In line with Polish law, a referendum is valid if it achieves a turnout of at least 50% plus one vote. 

To refuse taking part in the referendum proposed by PiS, voters need to explicitly refuse being handed the referendum ballot paper and have their refusal noted down by officials at a given polling station.

Other opposition parties, including the far-right Konfederacja – tipped as the likely coalition partner of PiS in the new parliament – appear keen to join in with the boycott.

PiS maintains an edge over KO in the polls, coming in at an average of 33.6% in the past 30 days, ahead of KO at 28.6%.

But that result will not give a majority of 231 seats in the 460 Sejm, the lower house if the Polish parliament. 

To achieve that, PiS needs an unlikely surge in the less than eight weeks that remain until October 15, the election day. Otherwise, it is going to team up with a coalition partner, possibly with Konfederacja.

The far-right party has recently surged to the third spot in the polls, averaging 12% in the last 30 days, making it a potential kingmaker in the coalition talks – with the opposition turning to it not an unlikely scenario, despite current denials.

Other major parties, the Third Way (a coalition of agrarian PSL and the centrist Polska 2050) and the Left, have polled at an average of 9.5% and 8.6%, respectively, over the past 30 days.