Poland’s opposition leader Donald Tusk has made a last-ditch attempt to win over female voters ahead of Sunday’s election, including a pledge to restore reproductive rights curtailed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Addressing a mostly female audience in the city of ?ód?, where women textile workers were at the forefront of the country’s industrial revolution, Tusk emphasised their potentially pivotal role in ousting PiS after eight years in power. For women wanting to live in a modern European country, “it really can’t be like this!”, he shouted to loud applause at a rally this week.

Ahead of what is shaping up to be one of Poland’s most polarised elections, Tusk’s conservative-leaning but more liberal Civic Platform is trailing PiS by some five percentage points. The opposition hopes to reverse the result of the 2019 election, when 43 per cent of the female vote went for PiS, and just 30 per cent for Civic Platform.