Poland elected Karol Nawrocki in the second round. He received 380 thousand more votes than his liberal challenger.
After the first round of the Polish presidential election showed an unexpectedly balanced battle between the government candidate of the Civic Coalition, Rafal Trzaskowski, and the candidate of the opposition party Law and Justice, Karol Nawrocki, the Sunday second round attracted increased interest from everyone interested in the happenings in our northern neighbors. After counting all the districts, it turned out that the new head of state will be a representative of the opposition camp. The difference between the two candidates was only 1.8 percentage points.
Karol Nawrocki, supported by the opposition Law and Justice party, gained 50.89 percent of the votes in the second round of Sunday's election. The candidate of the ruling Civic Coalition, Rafal Trzaskowski, was chosen by 49.11 percent of Poles. Nawrocki received 10.6 million votes. In the modern history of our northern neighbor, only Lech Walesa received more in 1990. About 380 thousand fewer voters chose Trzaskowski. The turnout was 71.63 percent.
President Petr Pavel has already congratulated the new head of the Polish state.
"I believe that under his leadership, Poland will continue to develop its democratic and pro-Western direction and that our countries will continue to cooperate mutually beneficially,"
quoted Pavla from Ceskenoviny.cz.
Even Match
In the first round of elections, which took place fourteen days ago, Trzaskowski won with a lead of only 1.8 percent. In the second round, this difference was the same, but this time Nawrocki had the upper hand. Surveys before the second round of voting suggested that the differences between the two candidates would be within one to three percentage points.
The balance was indeed characteristic of their last pre-election actions. Whether it was the participation of people in marches in support of both candidates, which their campaigns organized in Warsaw a week ago, or the course of the last television debate. The only controversy aroused perhaps only when Nawrocki tucked a packet of tobacco under his lip, only to assert moments later that it was chewing gum.
"Nawrocki did better than we thought, especially with this housing scandal,"
The main political analyst of the think-tank Polityka Insight, Wojciech Szacki, stated this for the web The Financial Times. He was referring to the case of a buy-out of a small apartment from a senior, to whom the conservative candidate promised care and the opportunity to spend the rest of his life in the apartment. However, as it turned out in reality, the senior is in a nursing home and complains, among other things, that he now does not even have money for food.
Nawrocki bets on populism
Both candidates for the new Polish president agreed in the pre-election debates on one side in their resistance to Russia and rejecting its aggression in Ukraine.
However, Nawrocki was also very critical of Ukrainian President Zelensky in line with the rhetoric of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński. He tries to exploit populist sentiments against Ukraine in Polish society, which occasionally arise. Therefore, he also promised to promote the reduction of support for Ukrainian refugees and the tightening of imports of Ukrainian agricultural produce into the European Union. He further criticised Prime Minister Donald Tusk for looking too much at his European allies, such as Germany or France, and unnecessarily strongly distinguishes himself from US President Donald Trump.
On the other hand, Trzaskowski campaigned with clearly liberal, pro-European views, supported the demands of the LGBT+ community, and strongly opposed the influence of the Polish Catholic Church.
The gap between the government and the president may deepen
Sunday's election result suggests that the effectiveness of Donald Tusk's current cabinet may significantly decrease. The local news website onet.pl even pointed out in this context that it was not just the president's post that was at stake, but the entire project of the government coalition led by Prime Minister Tusk.
The conservative candidate also confirmed this shortly before the final announcement of the results.
"We will not allow the power of Donald Tusk to become all-encompassing and a monopoly of evil power that takes away our grand dreams to be complete,"
declared Nawrocki according to ČT 24.
The current conservative president Andrzej Duda has so far blocked the adoption of a number of government laws by exercising his veto rights. Thus, the governing coalition could not override certain important items of its program. This includes, for example, the reversal of changes in the judiciary introduced by previous Law and Justice governments, which are criticized for violating the independence of justice or repealing the controversial right to artificial termination of pregnancy. The election of Nawrocki may deepen the trench between the conservative president and the liberal-leaning government even further.
The results of the Polish elections are important for us not only because it is our large northern neighbor and part of the Visegrád Group, but also because this country has grown into a strong economic power and the support of the eastern wing of NATO in recent years.
Sources: author's article, The Financial Times, onet.pl, ceskenoviny.cz, ct24.cz
