The second round of the presidential elections in Poland on Sunday resulted in a narrow victory for the nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki against the government candidate, Warsaw’s liberal mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski.
As reported yesterday, Nawrocki received 50,89 % of the votes against 49,11 % for Trzaskowski, a razor thin margin of 1,8 %. Voter turnout was record high (70,6 %). The margin was enough for Nawrocki, 42, who had been hand picked by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, to become Poland’s new president and prepare the ground for the return of PiS to power.
In Poland, a presidential democracy, the president holds a legislative veto power that can only be overridden by a three-fifths majority in the parliament. The current coalition government of Donald Tusk from the Civil Platform (PO), who took office in 2023, lacks that majority. Nawrocki is expected to follow in the footsteps of the current nationalist president, Andrzej Duda, in vetoing Tusk’s reform agenda.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted on Monday morning her congratulations to Nawrocki as the Commission usually does to democratically elected presidents or prime ministers:
“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,” she wrote.
Her spokesperson declined to comment on the repercussions of his victory on EU-Polish relations and the reform agenda that the Tusk government committed last year to implement. As this stage, it could be premature.
However, as far as is known about Nawrocki, his victory may derail the government’s reform agenda, particularly concerning abortion, LGBT+ rights, and rule of law issues. It could also increase tensions with the EU concerning Poland’s support to Ukraine and its application for membership in the EU and NATO.
But that is not all. Until now, Nawrocki was director of the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland. In 2018, a controversial amendment of the law of the institute (“Holocaust law”) criminalised an open debate on crimes committed in Poland during the Nazi occupation. The amendment aroused protests around the world.
Historical revisionism was also part of his campaign. Furthermore, Nawrocki would probably not have won the presidential elections without the support of those who voted for the far-right and openly antisemitic candidate Grzegorz Braun who gained 6.3% of the vote in the first round of the elections on 18 May.
To this can be added his shady background. During the election campaign, it was among others disclosed that he had participated in violent confrontations with a gang of football hooligans.
Will the Polish EU Presidency be affected in any way by his election to president? “Should an opposition candidate win the election it would affect the Presidency but only in its last month,” Wojciech Przybylski, Editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight and President of the Res Publica Foundation, told The Brussels Times in February.
In 2018, the 7(1) procedure was launched against Poland because of concerns of a serious breach of the rule of law. More crucial will therefore be the implementation of Poland’s action plan which the government committed to implement after the procedure had been withdrawn in 2024. A Commission spokesperson could not say how much of the plan has been implemented by now but Nawrocki’s election will surely not facilitate Poland’s return to the family of liberal democracies.
