Nawrocki’s slender victory (50.89%) over Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and candidate of the federal government coalition, illustrates and reinforces the political polarisation of Poland and the rise of the populist “Trumpist” proper in Central and Japanese Europe. For the reason that begin of the warfare in Ukraine, there was a lot hypothesis about whether or not Europe’s geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting eastwards. The Polish election appears to substantiate that the political centre of gravity is shifting to the appropriate.
A slender victory
We’re witnessing a relative erosion of the duopoly of the 2 main events, Civic Platform (PO) and Regulation and Justice (PiS), whose leaders – the present Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, and Jarosław Kaczyński respectively – have dominated the political panorama for over twenty years.
Kaczyński’s talent lay in propelling a candidate with no duties in his celebration, who was little recognized to most people just a few months in the past, and, above all, who’s from a distinct era, to the presidency (a place held since 2015 by a PiS man, Andrzej Duda). Nawrocki, a historian by coaching and director of the Polish Institute of Nationwide Remembrance, has helped form PiS’s reminiscence coverage. He gained the second spherical, regardless of his troubled previous as a hooligan, by interesting to voters on the appropriate.
Within the first spherical, he gained 29.5% of the vote, in comparison with Trzaskowski’s 31.36%, however the two far-right candidates, Sławomir Mentzen (an ultra-nationalist and financial libertarian) and Grzegorz Braun (a monarchist, avowed reactionary, and anti-Semite), gained a complete of 21% of the vote. They attracted a younger citizens (60% of 18–29-year-olds), who overwhelmingly transferred their votes to Nawrocki within the second spherical.
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Regardless of a excessive turnout of 71% and beneficial votes from the Polish diaspora (63%), Trzaskowski was unable to safe sufficient votes from the first-round candidates linked to the governing coalition, together with these on the left (who gained 10% between them) and the centre-right (Szymon Hołownia’s Third Manner motion, which gained 5% within the first spherical).
A Tusk authorities struggling to implement its programme
There are two Polands going through one another: the large cities, the place incomes and ranges of training are greater, and the extra rural small cities, that are extra conservative on social points and extra intently linked to the Catholic Church.
The themes of nationhood – Nawrocki’s marketing campaign slogan was “Poland first, Poles first” – household, and conventional values proceed to resonate strongly with an citizens that has been loyal to PiS for greater than twenty years. The electoral map, which exhibits a transparent north-west/south-east divide, is just like these of earlier presidential elections and even echoes the partition of Poland on the finish of the eighteenth century. The PiS vote is strongest within the a part of the nation that was beneath Russian rule till 1918. A extra conventional Catholicism in these much less developed areas, coupled with a powerful sense of nationwide id, partly explains these historic components.
The financial rationalization for the vote is unconvincing. Over the previous 25 years, Poland has undergone super transformation, pushed by steady economic growth. GDP per capita has risen from 25% to 80% of the EU common, though this progress has been erratically distributed. However, a comparatively beneficiant welfare state has been preserved.
Clearly, nevertheless, this progress, pushed by funding from Western Europe (primarily Germany) and European structural funds (3% of GDP), doesn’t present a ample electoral base for a liberal, centrist, pro-European authorities.
It’s exactly the federal government’s efficiency which will maintain the important thing to Trzaskowski’s failure. Having come to energy on the finish of 2023 with a reformist agenda, Donald Tusk’s authorities has solely been capable of implement a part of its programme, and it’s tough to be the candidate of an unpopular authorities. Conversely, the governing coalition has been weakened by the failure of its candidate.

Compte X de Rafal Trzaskowski
The principle purpose for the stalling of reforms is the presidential impasse. Though the president has restricted powers, he countersigns legal guidelines and overriding his veto requires a 3 fifth majority in parliament, which the governing coalition lacks.
The president additionally performs a job in international coverage by representing the nation, and above all by appointing judges, notably to the Supreme Courtroom. This has hindered the judicial reforms anticipated after eight years of PiS rule. It’s primarily on this space that Duda has obstructed progress. The election of Nawrocki, who is understood for his combative nature, means that the interval of cohabitation can be turbulent.
What are the primary worldwide implications of Nawrocki’s election?
Donald Tusk is now extra fashionable in Europe than in Poland; on this respect, we will converse of a “Gorbachev syndrome”. In Central Europe, the Visegrad Group (comprising Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) is deeply divided by the war in Ukraine, however it may discover widespread floor round a populist sovereignty led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Orbán was the primary to congratulate Nawrocki on his victory, adopted by his Slovak neighbour Robert Fico. The Czech Republic may additionally see a frontrunner from this motion come to energy if Andrej Babiš wins the parliamentary elections this autumn. Nawrocki would match proper into this image.
Since Donald Tusk returned to energy, notably throughout Poland’s EU presidency, which ends on 30 June, the main target has been on Poland’s “return” to the guts of the European course of. In opposition to the backdrop of the warfare in Ukraine and Poland’s pivotal function in coordinating a European response, the Weimar Group (comprising Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw) has emerged as a key participant. Three converging components have made this attainable: the French president’s agency stance towards Russia; the brand new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, breaking just a few taboos on defence and budgetary self-discipline; and Donald Tusk, the previous president of the European Council, regaining a spot on the coronary heart of the EU that his predecessors had deserted. A framework for a strategic Europe was taking form.
Nonetheless, President Nawrocki, and the PiS extra typically, are taking a distinct strategy to the EU: they’re positioning themselves as Eurosceptic opponents defending sovereignty. They’re enjoying on anti-German sentiment by demanding reparations 80 years after the end of the Second World War and asserting Poland’s sovereignty within the face of a “Germany-dominated Europe”. The Weimar Triangle, not too long ago strengthened by the bilateral treaty between France and Poland signed on 9 Could 2025, might be weakened on the Polish–German flank.
As a historian and former director of the Second World Conflict Museum in Gdansk and the Institute of Nationwide Remembrance, Nawrocki is effectively positioned to use this historic resentment. He has formulated a nationalist reminiscence coverage centred on a discourse of victimhood, portraying Poland as perpetually beneath assault from its historic enemies, Russia and Germany.
Whereas there’s a broad consensus in Poland concerning the Russian menace, opinions differ concerning the government’s desire to separate the traumas of the previous, notably these of the final warfare, from the challenges of European integration at this time.
Reminiscence points additionally play a distinguished function in relations with Ukraine. There’s complete consensus on the necessity to present navy assist to Ukraine, beneath assault: that is apparent in Poland, given its historical past and geography – defending Ukraine is inseparable from Polish safety. Nonetheless, each Nawrocki and Trzaskowski have touched upon the concept Ukraine ought to apologise for the crimes dedicated by Ukrainian nationalists over the last warfare, beginning with the massacre of more than 100,000 Poles in Volyn (Volhynia), north-western Ukraine) by Stepan Bandera’s troops.
Alongside reminiscence coverage, Nawrocki and the PiS are calling for the abolition of the 800 zloty (190 euros) month-to-month allowance paid to Ukrainian refugees. Poland had multiple million Ukrainian workers previous to the warfare, and greater than two million extra staff have arrived because it began, though round a million have since relocated to different international locations, primarily Germany and the Czech Republic.
Previous to the second spherical of the presidential election, Nawrocki readily signed the eight demands of the far-right candidate Sławomir Mentzen, which included ruling out Ukraine’s future NATO membership. Taking part in on anti-Ukrainian (and anti-German) sentiment, alongside Euroscepticism and sovereignty, is without doubt one of the important parts of the brand new president’s nationalist discourse.
A Central and Japanese European Trumpism?
Sure themes of the Polish election converge with a pattern current all through Central and Japanese Europe. We noticed this at work within the Romanian presidential election, the place the unsuccessful far-right nationalist candidate, George Simion, got here to Warsaw to assist Nawrocki, simply because the winner, the pro-European centrist Nicușor Dan, lent his assist to Trzaskowski. Nawrocki’s success reinforces an rising “Trumpist” motion in Japanese Europe, with Viktor Orbán in Budapest seeing himself as its self-proclaimed leader. A 12 months in the past, Orbán coined the slogan “Over there (in the USA), it’s MAGA; right here, will probably be MEGA: Make Europe Nice Once more”. The “Patriots for Europe” group, launched by Orbán final 12 months, is meant to unify this motion throughout the European Parliament.
American conservative networks, by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering of worldwide hard-right figures, and the Trump administration are instantly concerned on this course of. Shortly earlier than the presidential election, Nawrocki travelled to Washington to rearrange a photograph alternative with Trump within the Oval Workplace.
Most notably, two days earlier than the election, Kristi Noem, the US Secretary of Homeland Safety, was dispatched on a mission to Poland. Talking on the CPAC convention in Rzeszów, she explicitly linked a vote for Nawrocki to US security guarantees for Poland:
“Should you (elect) a frontrunner that can work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish folks could have a powerful ally that can make sure that it is possible for you to to battle off enemies that don’t share your values. […] You’ll have robust borders and shield your communities and hold them secure, and make sure that your residents are revered each single day. […] You’ll proceed to have a U.S. presence right here, a navy presence. And you’ll have tools that’s American-made, that is top quality.”
“Fort Trump”, that’s how the outgoing President Andrzej Duda named the US military base financed by Poland after a bilateral settlement was signed with Donald Trump throughout his first time period in workplace, in 2018. Equally, the US Home Committee on Overseas Affairs despatched a letter to the President of the European Fee accusing her of making use of “double requirements”, stating that EU funds had been blocked when the PiS was in energy, and claiming that European cash had been used to affect the end result of the Polish presidential election in favour of Trzaskowski. The letter was posted on-line on the State Department website. Prioritising the transatlantic hyperlink on the expense of strengthening Europe was one of many points at stake within the Warsaw presidential election.
CPAC is enjoying a big function in constructing a Trumpist national-populist community primarily based on rejecting the “liberal hegemony” established within the post-1989 period, regaining sovereignty from the EU, and defending conservative values towards a “decadent” Europe. Past the Polish presidential election, the purpose appears clear: to divide Europeans and weaken them at a time when the transatlantic relationship is being redefined.