A wafer-thin win by Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by Poland’s populist Law and Justice party in Sunday's (1 June) presidential election, has put back into question the future of the country’s relations with the European Union — and will block liberal reforms planned by the country’s government.
A final exit poll gave Karol Nawrocki 50.7 per cent of the vote, leaving his rival Rafał Trzaskowski trailing him at 49.3 per cent.
Trzaskowski, the current mayor of Warsaw, stood for the country’s ruling coalition led by Donald Tusk, which replaced the PiS in government 18 months ago and promised to roll back eight years of conservative rule, which had isolated Poland from the EU mainstream.
The presidential election was key to Donald Tusk’s plans, since the president wields the power of veto and can block legal measures needed to continue with liberal policies.
Now, with PiS buoyed by Nawrocki’s win and Polish society split politically right down the middle, the conservative-nationalists led by Jarosław Kaczynski will redouble efforts to destabilise Tusk's government coalition and win back full power in the next parliamentary elections in 2027.
Nawrocki ran a fiercely nationalist, anti-European campaign and attacked the Trzaskowski camp for favouring the EU Green Deal's environmental policies. He also claimed Poland would be flooded with illegal immigrants at the Brussels' behest and said Poland’s Catholic Church would be undermined by Trzaskowski’s pro-LGBTQI stance, as well as plans to liberalise strict anti-abortion rules.
The PiS candidate was also endorsed by Donald Trump in a brief meeting in the Oval Office. Kristi Noem, the US Homeland Security chief, told a CPAC conference in Poland last week that the US would be sure to stand by Poland if Nawrocki was elected.
Despite Nawrocki’s victory being a major blow for Tusk's coalition government and the European People's Party (EPP), EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she expected "very good" cooperation.
"I’m confident that the EU will continue its very good cooperation with Poland. We are all stronger together in our community of peace, democracy, and values. So let us work to ensure the security and prosperity of our common home," von der Leyen said on social media.
The election proved that PiS voters, in line with Trump’s MAGA supporters, instinctively reject any criticism of their candidate. Ample evidence provided by the Polish media of Nawrocki’s past close contacts with criminal gangland leaders in his native Gdańsk saw his voters dismissing these damning reports as ‘German propaganda’ — a reference to an often-repeated charge by PiS that Tusk and his supporters’ loyalties lie with Germany.
Meanwhile, Trzaskowski ran a campaign based on a promise to transcend political polarisation and build national unity. And he decided not to build his message on fears of a return of the PiS regime and even sought to adopt PiS themes such as a tougher approach to immigrants.
These are the issues which the Tusk government will have to address urgently.
A government reshuffle is expected, and a more open communications policy is much needed. The changes will prove a test for the coalition partners who are still learning to combine loyalty to the government’s main aim of delivering a viable democratic regime with the pursuit of their own distinctive policies, and the need to win future votes against competition from their current coalition partners.
The next election in Poland is two years away, when PiS will redouble its efforts to regain power. The present ruling coalition, without major changes, will struggle to win.
But the results of the first round of the present presidential election, two weeks ago, also showed deeper trends suggesting that Poland’s current political landscape is beginning to change fundamentally.
In the first round on 18 May, around 20 percent of Poland’s voters, many of them young people, backed radically nationalist rightwing parties. Leftwing candidates, also with strong support from young people, won a 10-percent share of the vote.
These results show that the next generation of voters is becoming impatient with both the PiS led by Kaczynski and their arch rival, Tusk’s Civic Coalition, which leads the present government. Both political movements are led by ageing politicians who remember Poland as it was before 1989 and governed the country in the post-Solidarity era.
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Krzysztof Bobinski is a board member of the Society of Journalists, in Warsaw, an independent NGO. He was the Financial Times correspondent in Warsaw from 1976 to 2000. He worked at the Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM) and was co-chair of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.
Krzysztof Bobinski is a board member of the Society of Journalists, in Warsaw, an independent NGO. He was the Financial Times correspondent in Warsaw from 1976 to 2000. He worked at the Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM) and was co-chair of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.