Poland’s Warsaw, Poland, saw the parade through the capital for one last time last Sunday, June 1, as two presidential hopefuls and their supporters walked into the country’s capital for the second round of voting for the nation’s next president.
Rafał Trzaskowski from the centre-right Civic Platform of the governing Civic Coalition and Karol Nawrocki, an independent candidate supported by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ran Poland between 2015 and 2023, are the two remaining contenders in the election. Trzaskowski won 31 in the first polls round on May 18. Nawrocki received 29 percent of the votes, while Nawrocki received 1%. 5 percent.
Polling organizations claim that the final round’s vote is evenly split between the two candidates so far. 47 is based on a poll conducted by IBRiS for Polish news outlet Onet. 7 percent of respondents intend to vote for Trzaskowski, with 46 percent indicating they will vote for Nawrocki. The rest are unsure.
Andrzej Duda, the incoming nationalist conservative president who was supported by PiS and who is accused of stifling justice reforms by using his veto against the government, will be replaced by one of the two.
This is a hotly contested race. Concerning the European Union, national security, and social values, Trzaskowski and Nawrocki clashed. Both candidates have used anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in a similar hardline way to immigration, while also reviving growing animosity among Poles, who view themselves as a front-runner for strained social services with 1. 55 million Ukrainian migrants and war refugees.
Nawrocki went further, saying he would oppose Ukraine joining NATO or even the EU, while Trzaskowski has suggested that only working Ukrainians should be able to access the nation’s child benefit.
‘Every vote is needed’
Trzaskowski addressed his opponent at his “Patriots’ March,” which attracted about 140,000 supporters over the weekend and called for unity.
It’s high time for truth to prevail. It’s high time for integrity to win. Justice must now prevail. Truth must now prevail. That’s what these elections are about,” he declared to a cheering crowd.
It takes a lot of determination. Every vote is required. So that the future wins. so that Poland overall wins. ”
Trzaskowski has served as Warsaw’s mayor since 2018. His remarks about “honesty” are interpreted as a reference to a recent article about Nawrocki allegedly buying an elderly man’s apartment in Gdansk in exchange for a pledge to care for him. The man’s family claims that the promise was broken, and he was taken to a state nursing facility.
In response, Nawrocki has said he will donate the flat to charity and pointed out that under Trzaskowski’s mayorship, families had been evicted from state accommodation in Warsaw.
Contrary to Nawrocki, Trzaskowski has supported calls for LGBTQ rights as well as the liberalization of the nation’s strict abortion law in the past. He is viewed as a more liberal candidate than his opponent. However, he has largely avoided these topics during this campaign. If elected, he would be more likely to help the governing coalition pass various bills, primarily reforms to the rule of law and the justice system, which have so far been blocked by Duda.
Bartosz Rydlinski, a political scientist at the Warsaw-based Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, predicted that Rafa Trzaskowski would be a pro-European politician. He would first travel to Berlin, Paris, and Brussels. He would try to maintain close relations with the US, but focus on strengthening the European component, both in the European Union and in NATO. ”
US endorsement for Nawrocki
Nearly 50,000 people participated in Nawrocki’s weekend “March for Poland” through central Warsaw, which highlighted his nationalist, pro-Catholic, and free-market views. He contends that Poland should prioritize its relationship with the US over the EU.
But his real triumph came this week when he received an official endorsement from Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security.
At the annual gathering of US conservative activists and officials called the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPA), Nawrocki presented his vision for Poland’s future on Tuesday. Although the event typically takes place in the US, it took place in Hungary in 2022. This year, it was held in the Polish town of Jasionka, southeastern Poland, close to the air and shipment hub which supplies weapons and aid to Ukraine.
Relations with the United States are based on a solid foundation of values for Poles and us. The audience, which included US Secretary of Homeland Security Noem, Vice President JD Vance, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk, and former White House political strategist Steve Bannon, who served as president in 2017 for the first time, included him.
“My opponent, Rafał Trzaskowski, is playing dishonestly,” said Nawrocki, who claims Trzaskowski would follow EU orders blindly, including on relaxing immigration rules. He also doesn’t want to reveal what his true vision for Poland after June 1st, 2025 is, despite lying in public debates and being caught in these lies. This notion is also glaring. Speed up the migration pact, speed up the climate pact and pursue a policy that is important for Brussels, not for our security. ”
After a long week of negative news, Nawrocki received a much-needed boost from the event.
First, on May 22, Slawomir Mentzen, the far-right leader of Konfederacja, who finished third in the first round of the presidential election, claimed that Nawrocki had participated in a fight between football hooligans in 2014, which Nawrocki has never denied.
Then, in a TV debate the following day, he was seen placing a small sachet on his gum, thought to be filled with tobacco, but which prompted speculation that he might have been taking drugs. On Tuesday, Nawrocki responded with a negative result from her drug test.
Onet later published a news story claiming that Nawrocki had participated in the supply of prostitutes to guests of the Grand Hotel in Sopot, where he worked as a security guard, when he was a young man. Nawrocki denied the claims and, in a post on X, stated that he would sue the outlet.
However, it appears that his support has not changed as a result of the negative news.
He was 28 when the hooligan fight occurred, and I don’t think that’s a problem because I believe men should be able to fight. When it comes to other issues – everyone can make a mistake, and it does not have to mean bad intentions,” said Marcin Mamon, a right-wing freelance journalist who claimed the alleged scandals involving Nawrocki have been exaggerated.
Voting for a conservative or right-wing candidate is a declaration of values, such as the Catholic faith. Voting for the opposing candidate would mean I would vote against abortion and against the Church. ”
Parliamentary impasse
For the former PiS government to reverse contentious judicial reforms, especially those that pertain to the judiciary’s independence, having a like-minded president would be crucial.
As a result of the changes, which were deemed to contradict European law, in 2021, the European Union imposed penalties on Poland. Civic Platform was elected in 2023 with the promise to reverse the contentious laws, but because President Duda has the power to veto and would veto any attempts to change the law.
A total war with the government would be won by Nawrocki, according to Rydlinski. “He would be a much more conservative president than Andrzej Duda, and he would probably refer many bills to the Constitutional Tribunal, which is still under the control of judges elected by the Law and Justice government. ”
A victory for Nawrocki, in the opinion of experts, would also put Poland and Europe on a collision course.
“Karol Nawrocki would very strongly opt for bilateral relations between Warsaw and Washington, breaking up the EU’s unity,” Rydlinski said. He would have a major conflict with Germany, deteriorate relations with France, and undoubtedly a conflict with Brussels. He would also be a mini-Trump in Central Europe. ”
Nawrocki’s conservatism and fascination with Trump have sparked concern among some Polish voters. People who voted for left-wing or centrist candidates in the first round are likely to ally themselves now, not against what they perceive as Nawrocki’s Trump-like outlook for Poland.
The candidates who lost in the first round have indicated their support for Trzaskowski, and they are expected to do the same for their supporters.
“Putting a cross next to Trzaskowski will not come easy for me,” said Zofia Szeremet, a 20-year-old student based in Warsaw who voted for the left-wing leader of the Razem party, Adrian Zandberg, in the first round. However, I have no way of thinking of not participating in such a significant election. Trzaskowski is a guarantee for Poland’s pro-European course, despite my disagreements on many fronts.
“Nawrocki is anti-EU, anti-Ukrainian, inexperienced and incompetent, and I don’t imagine a president having ties with hooligan movements. ”
A close call
Polls are inconclusive when it comes to the election favourite. However, the first round of the voting revealed that the two largest parties have grown weary of maintaining their supremacy.
The Nawrocki and Trzaskowski results are slightly above 60%, which is the worst result since 2005 when added up. It is clear that Poles are looking for an alternative, and not only on the right, but also to the left,” said Marcin Palade, political sociologist and expert on electoral geography in Poland. Andrzej Duda and Rafal Trzaskowski, the top two candidates in the 2020 presidential election, won almost 74% of the vote.
The polls had predicted that Rafa Trzaskowski’s performance would be below what the odds were that he could win in the worst possible way, according to Palade. “Nawrocki had the worst result a PiS candidate has had since 2005, below the ratings of the party that has stood behind him. ”
Source: Aljazeera
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