Is Poland any better a place after five years of centre-right government?

In Smolar’s view, there is a growing awareness among Poles that the government is not doing what it should to secure Poland against the effects of the economic crisis. There is also the problem of the ‘weakened leadership’.

In an exclusive interview for Polish Radio’s English Service, Smolar says our reporter Michal Kubicki "Tusk is a very good speaker and great seducer but he communicates very rarely with the people, and there ‘s a sense of a certain void; quite a dangerous void".

He stresses, however, that there is no alternative to Mr Tusk’s government, with the "new radicalization of Jarosław Kaczyński [leader of the conservative Law and Justice] moving him further away from power and two, rather weak, parties on the left".