Civic Platform

Civic Platform (Polish: Platforma Obywatelska) is a Polish political party founded in 2001. Since 2007 it has been the largest party in the Sejm, and its leader Donald Tusk is the prime minister of Poland.

The party won the parliamentary election in October 2007, and created a coalition government with the centre agrarian Polish People's Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe). In 2010 Civic Platform's candidate Bronisław Komorowski won the presidential election and became President of Poland. In 2011 the party won the parliamentary election again, which makes it the first party since the fall of communism to be re-elected, with Donald Tusk being the longest serving prime minister.

Before 2007 the party ideology was mostly neoliberal and moderately conservative. It supported tax cuts, flat tax, privatization of healthcare, deregulation of the economy, abolishing the compulsory military service and opposed legalizing abortion, same-sex marriages and soft drugs decriminalisation. Since the party came to power very little of promised reforms were implemented. The conscription was abolished in 2010. In 2011 the party voted against totally banning abortion, but the same day it also voted against liberalizing the abortion law.

Among the members of Civic Platform there are both people with conservative and more left-wing views, so its political position is rather difficult to clearly identify. The party is sharply criticized both by left and right-wing politicians, mainly for growing public debt, rising bureaucracy and populism. Nevertheless Civic Platform still remains the leader in most of the polls.