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Polish voters have given Donald Tusk, the liberal prime minister, a boost by choosing his ally, Bronislaw Komorowski as president in Sunday’s election. Now the pressure will be on Tusk to deliver what he has long promised – the wide-ranging overhaul of Poland’s public finances, bureaucracy and labour markets.

“You have all the power now. Show us what you can do,” Poland’s top-selling daily Fakt said on its front page today. It could not be better put. Tusk repeatedly blamed Lech Kaczynski, the late conservative president who was killed in an air crash earlier this year, for blocking planned reforms. With his own man in the presidential palace, that excuse is gone.
With 95 per cent of the votes counted, Komorowski has an unassailable lead of 52.6 per cent to 47.7 per cent over his rival, the conservative Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Lech Kaczynski’s twin brother. It was a clear victory for Komorowski, despite earlier fears in his camp over a surge of sympathy for the Kaczynskis.

The popular Tusk was vindicated in his decision at the start of 2010 not to run for the presidency and stay instead in the less glamorous but far more powerful post of prime minister.

Tusk’s was originally banking on Lech Kaczynski’s unpopularity and evident lack of enthusiasm for office. But the Smolensk air disaster upset his calculations and Jaroslaw Kaczynski the glimmer of a chance which he skilfully exploited.

But in the end the lacklustre Komorowski made it home with votes to spare. Tusk immediately capitalised on the victory by pledging to push ahead with his plans to introduce an anchor on public spending – a legal rule controlling expenditure limits. “We want to spend money in a reasonable way and this will require the support of politicians and citizens. I will ask my political partners and the parliament to help impose some discipline in our public finances,” said Tusk, according to Reuters.

Tusk no longer needs to worry about presidential vetoes blocking his proposals. But Poland is unlikely to see a rush to reform. First, there is Tusk’s innate caution. He is no Leszek Balcerowicz – architect of the shock therapy that launched Poland’s market reforms in the early 1990s. Next, Civic Platform rules in coalition with the Polish People’s Party, the former peasants’ party big on hand-outs for farmers. The election highlighted a resurgence in support for the left, which neither Civic Platform and the People’s Party can ignore.

Also, there are local elections in the autumn and parliamentary polls next year. As Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients, the result is “positive” for markets but the “reforms look increasingly unlikely to happen quickly as local and parliamentary elections are approaching.” Even if the party generals are committed, the foot-soldiers may not be.

That said, Komorowski’s victory will enhance the belief – in Poland and elsewhere in the European Union – that the country is managing its course through the global economic turmoil remarkably well. Its economic modernisation is going ahead – not least the construction of a long-awaited motorway network. And, despite the shock of the Smolensk air crash, its political stability grows stronger.

One measure of Tusk’s quiet success is that even Jaroslaw Kaczynski has remade himself as a moderate. As prime minister in 2006-7, he organised a bitterly divisive campaign against former Communists that put Poles at each other’s throats. In the presidential campaign, he was almost Tusk-like in his calm appeal.