A mid-May TNS Polska poll indicates that the ruling Civic Platform (PO) now has 28 percent support among Poles, ahead of Law and Justice (PIS) with 25 percent. Third is Palikot's Movement (RP) which is backed by 10 percent of Poles followed by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) at 7 percent.

This poll, taken after Prime Minister Donald Tusk pushed through reforms to the pension system opposed by some 80-90 percent of Poles, shows clearly that Poles simply do not see any alternative to the PM and his government and will not throw their support behind PiS or any other party, no matter what.

Mr Tusk and his party have made several political errors this year, starting with an ill-conceived prescription drug reform that caused a lot of chaos and confusion in its first few weeks.

After that, they unleashed the wrath of Poland''s youth by initially backing the ACTA treaty which aims to implement stricter copyright laws on the internet. Mr Tusk later admitted that he had been “mistaken” in backing the treaty and withdrew his support. Also, many of the infrastructure projects that were supposed to be ready for the upcoming Euro 2012 championship have yet to be finished.

And now Mr Tusk has passed a hugely unpopular reform raising the retirement age for men and women to 67.

Yet despite all of this, his party is still number one in the polls.

Nothing to fear

This should give the prime minister courage to implement more badly needed reforms in Poland. Few leaders in Europe today enjoy the luxury of having such feeble political opposition as Mr Tusk has. He should take advantage of this. Poland's economy is not doing badly but with some help, could probably do much better.

The labor-participation rate in Poland is low, at about 56 percent according to World Bank data. By comparison, it is at 60 percent in Germany and 59 percent in the Czech Republic. Efforts should be made to address this. Also, there is the problem of KRUS, the farmers’ national-insurance system, which is still a heavy burden on the state, costing taxpayers some zł.17 billion.

Of course, this would be a tricky thing to reform as Mr Tusk's junior coalition partner, the Polish People's Party (PSL), is a rural party, but steps can be taken to at least limit the privileges farmers enjoy.

Mr Tusk should exploit his strength and the opposition's weakness for the good of his country.

It is difficult to think of any major European country where there is as much polarization and hatred between political parties and their supporters as there is in Poland today.

Even though the recent French presidential campaign was a heated affair, almost immediately after the vote the loser and now former President Nicolas Sarkozy invited his nemesis Francois Hollande to attend a ceremony with him.

In Poland, when Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński lost the presidential election to Bronisław Komorowski in 2010, he refused to attend his inauguration (or even shake his hand) and said Mr Komorowski had been elected “by mistake.”

After the 2010 parliamentary elections in the UK, there was talk of a grand coalition between arch-rivals the Labor Party and the Conservatives, something unimaginable between Poland's two biggest parties today, the ruling Civic Platform (PO) and PiS. In Germany one can also easily imagine Ms Merkel ruling with the social democrats.

We don't expect love, but ...

Nobody is saying Poland's two biggest parties should be sending flowers to each other but the level of crass, primitive behavior from politicians on both sides is appalling.

During last Friday's debate in parliament over the government's pension reform bill new lows were reached.

While Jarosław Kaczyński was making a speech, saying his brother, the late President Lech Kaczyński hadn't supported increasing the retirement age to 67 as Prime Minister Donald Tusk was claiming, one or more MPs shouted “why don't you call your brother and ask him?”

Mr Kaczyński lost his cool and accused Mr Tusk of fanning the flames of hatred. “This terrible crassness is on the level of what Adolf Hitler would have wanted for Poles, this is all your fault,” he said.

After this Janusz Palikot, the leader of Palikot's Movement (RP), which is part of the anti-PiS camp, stepped up to the podium and again referred to the PiS leader's dead brother saying he wasn't surprised that “someone who was willing to send his brother to his death would say such things.”

After this a recess was called to cool emotions. Also later that day a female journalist associated with pro-PiS views (Polish journalists today are divided into the pro-PiS and pro-PO camps) tried to interview former deputy parliamentary speaker Stefan Niesiołowski from PO.

Mr Niesiołowski refused, telling the journalist she should go back to her “PiS ass-lickers” and that she should “piss off.” He then lashed out at the journalist's camera trying to knock it to the ground.

As could be expected, reactions to the incident reflected political sympathies. PiS politicians and their supporters think what Mr Niesiołówski did was reprehensible and he should be punished or ejected from politics. Meanwhile many PO politicians and their supporters think Mr Niesiołowski was provoked and that the journalist in question is after all a “PiS propagandist.”

To his credit though, the prime minister is trying to stay above the fray and act the grown-up. Mr Tusk has said publicly that he thinks Mr Niesiołowski should apologize to the journalist “without reserve.”

However, it seems only a matter of time before we start seeing some Wrestlemania action in the Polish parliament.

Following a flurry of announcements by top EU officials (including the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso), that they will not be attending any Euro 2012 soccer matches in Ukraine, the matter has become a political issue for co-host Poland.

The EU politicians' boycott is in protest at the continued imprisonment of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her alleged mistreatment (including a beating) in a Ukrainian jail. In Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of the biggest opposition party in Poland, Law and Justice (PiS) has joined the “punish Ukraine” cause.

“UEFA should, at the least, move the final to Warsaw. Any other reaction will be a silent approval of further undemocratic measures by the Ukrainian government,” Mr Kaczyński wrote on his blog.

The PiS leader also called for a boycott of matches in Ukraine and said that if that threat didn't work then “the appropriate European institutions should prepare a scenario for stripping Ukraine of the rights to host the tournament and moving it to another country.”

An own goal

These comments raised an uproar in Poland with Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying Mr Kaczyński had “scored an own goal.” The PM also said that Euro 2012 was the “biggest national event for Poland as the eyes of the whole world will be focused on Poland and Ukraine.”

“It would be bad if there are more such voices from Warsaw which could degrade this tournament or even block it.”

Most Poles would probably agree with Mr Tusk. To be brutally honest, most Poles are more concerned with their country raising its global profile during the tournament than with Ms Tymoshenko's condition in jail.

One should also remember that it is thanks to Ukraine that Poland has the chance to host Europe's best teams this summer, and not the other way round. It was Hryhorij Surkis, the Ukraine soccer association's chairman (and UEFA executive committee member) who approached Poland for a co-hosting bid, well aware that Ukraine alone would never be awarded such a prestigious tournament.

It was thanks to Mr Surkis's successful lobbying (whatever that entailed) that the two countries won the rights to host the tournament.

Not for the faint-hearted

Ukrainian politics is a gangster-like affair. Those who play the game know exactly what they are in for. Do we tear our hair out when one gangster is killed in a shoot-out with another gangster? Ms Tymoshenko made a fortune from dealing in gas, a sector that's riddled with corruption in Ukraine.

During the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005, she bamboozled the West into thinking she was a politician who shared Western values but her time in office as prime minister of Ukraine can by no means be described as an exercise in such values. She was as autocratic as they come and now she is being accused of corruption by the current Ukrainian government.

Of course incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych was foolish to lock up Ms Tymoshenko. Throwing a woman (especially one as pretty and charming as Ms Tymoshenko) in jail is a guaranteed political loser. But Ms Tymoshenko is no freedom fighter. She is simply the latest victim in a brutal game she voluntarily decided to be a part of.

One would be hard put to remember the last time Law and Justice (PiS) and its leader Jarosław Kaczyński actually put forward a policy proposal.

Even when it comes to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's extremely unpopular plan to raise the retirement age in Poland to 67 for both men and women, the largest opposition party in Poland has been unable to come up with its own alternative to tackle a demographic problem that everyone agrees needs to be addressed. They simply rejected the idea of raising the retirement age outright and that was that.

What is PiS's stance on taxes? Should they be raised or lowered? What is PiS's idea for keeping Poland's economy going in these uncertain times? Silence. Even the ongoing global discussion on capitalism as a whole and how much adjustment it needs seems of scant interest to Mr Kaczyński and his colleagues.

Street fighter

Instead, what we have from PiS is street politics, with Mr Kaczyński spending more time at demonstrations than in parliament.

This month he has taken part in at least three such rallies. The first was during the second anniversary of the Smolensk airplane catastrophe, an occasion he used to lambaste the current government and suggest that the plane crash was actually an assassination of his brother, the late President Lech Kaczyński.

Then there was the anniversary of his brother's funeral, during which he held a rally saying he is “fighting for a free Poland” and that the country needs a “moral revolution.”

Last weekend, the PiS leader was on the streets again, protesting against the decision of Poland's National Broadcasting Council not to issue a license for Poland's digital platform to the ultra-conservative TV Trwam, run by the controversial priest Tadeusz Rydzyk.

Surrounded by mediocrity

From a certain perspective, Jarosław Kaczyński's stance is understandable. The Smolensk catastrophe resulted in the deaths of almost all his party's credible experts on social and economic issues. Those experts who didn't die in Smolensk have been kicked or forced out of PiS.

These were politicians one could disagree with but who nevertheless had arguments worth debating.

Mr Kaczyński is presently surrounded by sycophants who are intellectual minnows, mere “yes men.” They have no ideas that could help Poland progress and develop, and Mr Kaczyński is so loath to admit independent-minded people into his inner circle (access to which is also guarded jealously by its members) that those PiS politicians who might have good ideas have no way of making themselves heard.

And so, Mr Kaczyński takes to the streets as a way of getting attention. So far, polls show this strategy has neither harmed nor helped him. Of course, if the economy takes a drastic turn for the worse, Mr Kaczyński could be well-positioned to stand at the helm of popular protests. However, while Poland's economy is doing relatively well, street politics is a road to nowhere.

Going by opinions expressed in Poland's mainstream media, one would think that Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński had lost his mind. In recent times, he has suggested blatantly that his late twin brother, former President Lech Kaczyński, was murdered on April 10, 2010 in the Smolensk airplane catastrophe.

“How can he spread such drivel?”; “that's absurd,” are some of the most oft-repeated comments of Polish journalists. These are in response to Mr Kaczyński's recent claims that he “feels his brother was murdered” and that “the roots of the assassination could have been in Poland,” suggesting that Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government was involved in the plot.

Not so crazy?

But a recent opinion poll indicates that Mr Kaczyński seems to know what he is doing. A mid-April TNS OBOP voter survey showed his party now trailing the ruling Civic Platform (PO) by only three percentage points.

The poll had PO with 34 percent support and PiS with 31 percent support. A month earlier, before Mr Kaczyński categorically stated that he believes his brother was murdered, TNS OBOP had PO with 29 percent support and PiS with 25 percent.

This means that while the ruling party's standing has improved in the eyes of Poles, PiS's popularity is also rising and Mr Kaczyński's theories, considered outlandish by some, are resonating with an increasing number of Poles.

Nothing like polarization

This shows that putting the Smolensk catastrophe at the forefront of the political discourse in Poland is very beneficial for both parties. Mr Kaczyński can activate his electorate plus those who might not be his natural supporters but are suspicious of Russia, and also those Poles who are simply angry at the government for one reason or another and thus enjoy seeing it being hammered by PiS.

Donald Tusk, on the other hand, can activate his natural electorate plus those who might not otherwise support him but who think Mr Kaczyński's theories are simply crazy and that he can never again be allowed to rule Poland.

Also, as long as Smolensk is the main topic in Poland, the PM does not need to answer questions about his planned pension reform and other such mundane matters but simply has to push back at PiS's accusations of “treason” and “assassination.”

The Smolensk issue is thus a very convenient political tool for PiS and for PO as well. Those who it doesn't benefit are the other smaller political parties and of course, those who would like the discussion to be about something other than Smolensk.