Poland's presidential election set for tight vote

RTÉ News​

a day ago

Tomorrow, Polish voters will cast their ballots in a decisive second-round vote to decide whether centrist Rafal Trzaskowski or conservative Karol Nawrocki will become their next president.
The past two weeks of campaigning have delivered a tight contest between two candidates from Poland's largest political camps: the centre-right Civic Platform and the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
But it was always likely to be that way. Both parties have dominated Polish politics for more than 20 years and there is no love lost between them.
Polls yesterday showed both candidates tied on 47% each, or a one percentage point advantage for either. The result will be very close.
At stake is whether the current pro-EU coalition government can pursue its reform agenda with a centrist ally in Warsaw's presidential palace, or face continued political gridlock until the next parliamentary election in 2027 with another conservative president in office.
Outgoing President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS, has vetoed or deferred some two dozen bills passed by Donald Tusk's coalition government in the past 18 months, blocking its efforts to reverse the changes made to the judiciary during PiS's time in power from 2015 to 2023.
The coalition has also held off on proposing the liberalisation of abortion laws knowing that Mr Duda would likely block it.
Left, liberal and centrist voters see a Nawrocki presidency as presenting more of the same, if not worse.
Poland's president holds a largely ceremonial role but can veto bills passed by parliament.
A 60% majority can overturn the veto but Mr Tusk's government is short of those numbers.
The president is also the commander-in-chief of Poland's armed forces and oversees security and defence policy so the office holder wields power.
The campaign, which began in January, has been "99% ideological and maybe 1% issue-based", Andrzej Bobinski, managing director of Polityka Insight, told RTÉ News.
Mr Trzaskowski, the centrist mayor of Warsaw who narrowly lost the previous presidential election in 2020 to Mr Duda, has been the frontrunner throughout.
But he saw his lead almost disappear in the first round.
Mr Trzaskowski and his team have since focused on mobilising more left and hard left voters, and particular young female voters, many of whom feel disappointed at the ruling coalition's lack of progress on liberalising Poland's strict abortion laws.
"Women hardly believe that even with the President from the same political spectrum, anything will change," said Magdalena Jakubowska, vice-president of think tank Res Publica Foundation in Warsaw.
At rallies in the past two weeks, Mr Trzaskowski's wife, Malgorzata Trzaskowska, has often taken centre stage to emphasise that her husband is the candidate who supports women's rights.
He supports the liberalisation of current abortion laws but he has not put the issue at the front of his campaign as he did in 2020.
Doing so would hamper his efforts to appeal to conservative voters from small town and rural Poland.
Mr Nawrocki, who has taken on the mantle of the challenger in this race, is a historian and social conservative. But he has no political experience.
He is currently the head of Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that oversees official Polish history, and was previously the director of the Museum of the Second World War in his native Gdansk.
Though officially running as an independent candidate, he has the full backing and support of PiS's political machine.
Mr Nawrocki's campaign has been dogged by scandals as much as anything else, namely accusations that he purchased a flat in the late 2000s from an elderly man in his home city of Gdansk for a small sum in return for a promise to look after the pensioner.
Polish media later reported that the elderly man now lives in a care facility and not in the apartment.
Mr Nawrocki repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said he continued to help the elderly man financially.
He has also been linked to football ultras in his youth.
However, these allegations have not damaged his campaign as he has managed to secure the support of the PiS electorate.
"Karol Nawrocki basically has to work to the right and to the extreme right. He has to mobilise his voter base and to mobilise everybody who's to the right of Law and Justice," said Mr Bobinski.
Mr Trzaskowski, he added, "is trying to build a coalition of people who don't want Law and Justice to get back to power".
The big political development in this campaign has been the increase in support for far-right candidates.
In the first round vote, 21% of Polish voters cast their ballots for one of two far-right candidates.
Last week, the more popular of the two, Slawomir Mentzen, who won 15% of votes in the first round, invited both Mr Trzaskowski and Mr Nawrocki to discuss election issues on his YouTube channel.
Mr Mentzen presented eight demands that he wanted them to agree so that his 2.9 million voters could decide who to support in the second round.
The interviews made for interesting viewing but, by themselves, may not make a massive impact on the final result.
During his grilling, Mr Nawrocki came across as weak and fawned over the far-right leader's eight demands in a bid to win the support of his voters.
He signed all eight of Mr Mentzen's demands, one of which was a commitment to oppose Ukraine's membership of NATO in the future. It was a point that Mr Trzaskowski would not agree to.
Mr Trzaskowski fared better and may have won over the libertarians among Mr Mentzen's voters - they like his low tax agenda, rather than his ultra-nationalism.
Also, both men went for a beer together after their YouTube debate which did the rounds on Polish social media.
Videos of them having a pint in Mr Mentzen's craft beer pub, along with Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, were the stuff of PR gold and could translate into a few more votes for Warsaw's mayor.
In the end, Mr Mentzen decided not to endorse either of the two candidates. The whole thing looked like an exercise in self-promotion for the far-right leader who wants to break Poland's long-standing political duopoly.
However, a sizeable number of far-right voters could just vote for the conservative candidate tomorrow knowing that he aligns more closely with their nationalist and socially conservative views.
A lively debate on the Polish public broadcaster and two mass rallies by both candidates in the capital last weekend did not result in a swing towards either candidate.
Those who are committed Trzaskowski or Nawrocki supporters are not going to change sides at this stage.
Instead, younger voters who opted for more radical, anti-establishment parties in the first round, are more likely to sway the result for one candidate or the other.
If far-right supporters turn out in large numbers for Mr Nawrocki, then he may win.
Whereas, if Mr Trzaskowski successfully mobilises more left and liberal voters, particularly women, the result could favour him.
Whatever the outcome, it looks set to be very close.
"I'm expecting that there will be very little difference between the two candidates. It will be really 50-50, and 200, 300,000 votes may really change the situation," said Ms Jakubowska.