WARSAW — The campaign language ahead of this year’s Polish general election is apocalyptic — painting it as an existential battle for the soul of the EU’s fifth most populous country — but the likeliest outcome is a chaotic stalemate.

If the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) hangs on to power for a third term there isn’t much more it can do to wreck Poland without quitting the EU — and there’s little prospect of that. If the opposition pulls off a stunner and wins it will be so hemmed in by PiS-controlled courts and institutions and by a hostile president that it won’t be able to do much more than tweak the optics rather than surgically remove the growths added by Law and Justice.

Internationally, Poland is too important to be kept in the deep freeze forever; with a fast-growing economy, a big military and a key role in supplying Ukraine, it is no Slovakia. A PiS win will mean greater efforts to find some accommodation with Warsaw; an opposition victory will dramatically improve the atmosphere, but there are limits to even an opposition-ruled Poland’s coziness on many issues that are key to the EU.

An opposition victory could weaken PiS’s institutional advantages that it’s been using to skew the playing field in its favor — potentially leading to a longer-term shift away from the right-wing party that’s dominated Polish politics for the past eight years. But it’s no quick fix.

None of this is stopping both sides from claiming that the October 15 vote is the most important in decades.

According to PiS, opposition leader Donald Tusk is a disloyal Pole who is working on behalf of both Germany and Russia to turn the country into a puppet state by letting in hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Oh, and he also wants to raise the retirement age.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS chief and Poland’s real ruler, thundered to his supporters on Sunday: “Donald Tusk had to agree to make Poland subservient to Germany and therefore to Russia.”

“Stop Tusk. Only PiS can ensure Poland’s security,” trumpets an election ad.

For the opposition, led by Tusk’s Civic Coalition, another four-year term with Law and Justice at the helm means real danger for the future of Poland as a democratic country, as well as undermining the rights of women thanks to a draconian abortion law and an LGBTQ+ minority subjected to attacks by ruling party officials.

“Law and Justice is poison,” Tusk said at a campaign rally this summer. “Every day, every month they are in power is a growing threat to our security.”

Those fighting words are designed to budge the electorate; POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows PiS at 37 percent while Civic Coalition is at 30 percent — meaning any new government is going to require cobbling together a coalition with smaller parties.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party Jaroslaw Kaczynski has promised that if his party wins, he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU Leon Neal/Getty Images

There is no poll predicting an opposition win so gigantic that it would gain a two-thirds majority of MPs needed to overturn presidential vetoes. The country’s top courts are filled with judges appointed by the current government, meaning legislation will also be caught up in endless litigation.

“Even if they win an outright majority, which doesn’t look likely at the moment, this is an internally divided opposition and they face a president who will be able to veto their legislation,” said Szczerbiak.

However, there is a chance that Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution.

“Duda is a dealmaker,” said Wawrzyniec Smoczynski, a political analyst and president of the New Community Foundation. “Tusk is a big risk for him and the way to lessen that is to strike a deal.”

If Duda doesn’t play ball, a non-PiS government could be limited to purging state companies, the government and the media of PiS loyalists.

“Overnight you will get the public media back. Everyone will be booted out of there,” Tusk pledged.

Those small steps are unlikely to satisfy opposition backers yearning for revenge against Law and Justice and a clean break with the last eight years.

“For Poland, it’s all fucked up,” said Pawel Piechowiak, taking part in last week’s massive opposition march in Warsaw while waving huge Polish and EU flags, his cheeks painted in rainbow colors. “You can’t wreck this country any more than it is.”

But those personnel changes may have longer term consequences by switching public media away from backing PiS, which could undercut that party’s base of support in rural and small-town Poland.

That could change the political dynamic, especially if the next government is short-lived and there is an early election; it could also influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025.

“The parliamentary election could be viewed as the first round of a longer campaign,” said Szczerbiak.

Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.