Polish conservative Nawrocki leads presidential vote
By Marek Strzelecki and Anna Koper
A late exit poll by Ipsos for broadcasters TVN, TVP and Polsat showed Nawrocki at 51% and his rival, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, at 49%. Readings published just after voting ended had Nawrocki losing at 49.7% to 50.3%. Official results were due on Monday.
Nawrocki, 42, an amateur boxer who ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure government economic and social policies favour Poles over other nations, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.
While Poland's parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and across the European Union.
Both candidates agreed on the need to spend heavily on defence as Trump, the U.S. president, is demanding from Europe and to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's three-year-old invasion. Poland is a member of the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization security alliance.
But while Trzaskowski sees Ukraine's future membership of NATO as essential for Poland's security, Nawrocki said recently that if he were president he would not ratify it because of the danger of the alliance being drawn into war with Moscow.
Russia has demanded that NATO not enlarge eastward to include Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as a condition of a peace deal with Kyiv, sources have said.
Nawrocki has presented the ballot as a referendum on the broad coalition government of pro-Europe Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the leader of the Civic Coalition (KO) party who took office about 18 months ago.
'This will be a good counterweight to the government,' said Mateusz Morawiecki, who was prime minister in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government that lost power in 2023. Although technically an independent, Nawrocki was backed by PiS in the election.
Trzaskowski, 53, had promised to help Tusk complete his government's democratic reforms, which they both say aim to repair an erosion of checks and balances under the former PiS government.
Trzaskowski's campaign initially proclaimed victory on Sunday and did not immediately comment after poll readings showed a move in Nawrocki's favour.
TUMULTUOUS CAMPAIGN
The first round of the election on May 18 saw a surge in support for the anti-establishment far-right, suggesting that the KO-PiS duopoly that has dominated Polish politics for a generation may be starting to fracture.
Nevertheless, after a tumultuous campaign in which Nawrocki in particular faced a slew of negative media reports about his alleged past conduct, once again candidates representing the two main parties faced off in the second round.
Nawrocki dismissed accusations of wrongdoing in his acquisition of a flat from a pensioner and participation in mass organised fights among football hooligans.
Social issues were also at stake in the election. Trzaskowski has said he wanted to see Poland's near total ban on abortion eased, something that outgoing nationalist President Andrzej Duda strongly opposed.
A win by Nawrocki will likely mean that Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico gain an ally in central Europe. His victory could lend momentum to the Czech Republic's eurosceptic opposition leader and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis who leads opinion polls ahead of an October election.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke in Nawrocki's favour in May, telling a conservative gathering in Poland that he 'needs to be the next president.'
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This ideological disconnect renders key diplomatic positions vulnerable to internal sabotage or ambiguity, weakening South Africa's moral clarity and domestic trust in the state's international engagements. The invocation of 'national unity' masks what is, in reality, a fragile arrangement between actors with divergent worldviews. The absence of a formal coalition agreement available to the public deepens concerns about the ad hoc nature of governance. Foreign policy, like other key domains, appears to be negotiable rather than principled. The Israel question thus becomes a prism for understanding deeper contradictions within South Africa's coalition government. Until the 7th Administration resolves these ideological fractures, it remains a government of convenience, not unity. The claim of national consensus is untenable when major foreign policy initiatives are undermined by internal dissent. 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By Barbara Erling and Anna Magdalena Lubowicka In a victory for European conservatives inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump, Nawrocki secured 50.89% of the vote, election commission data showed, an outcome that presages more political gridlock as he is likely to use his presidential veto to thwart Prime Minister Donald Tusk's liberal policy agenda. Tusk's government has been seeking to reverse judicial reforms made by the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, but current President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has blocked its efforts – a pattern Nawrocki is likely to continue. Nawrocki's rival, Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal Warsaw mayor who was standing for Tusk's ruling Civic Coalition (KO), got 49.11%, the data showed. Both candidates had declared victory immediately after the publication of an exit poll late on Sunday that showed the result would be very close. 'I'm sorry that I didn't manage to convince the majority of citizens of my vision of Poland,' Trzaskowski said on X. 'I congratulate Karol Nawrocki on winning the presidential election.' Nawrocki, a conservative historian and amateur boxer who was backed by PiS, had presented the vote as a referendum on Tusk's 18-month-old government. 'The referendum on the dismissal of the Tusk government has been won,' PiS lawmaker Jacek Sasin wrote on X. Poland's blue-chip stock index shed more than 2% in early trade on Monday as investors anticipated more political paralysis. The zloty currency also fell versus the euro. Nawrocki, like his predecessor Duda, is expected to block any attempts by the Tusk government to liberalise abortion or reform the judiciary. The EU took the previous PiS government to court over its judicial reforms, saying they undermined the rule of law and democratic standards. 'Everything was on a knife edge,' said 32-year-old IT specialist Patryk Marek. 'Feelings are for sure mixed for this moment. But how small this margin was, it tells us how divided we are almost in half as voters.' EUROSCEPTIC Sunday's run-off vote in Poland came just two weeks after Romania's centrist Bucharest mayor, Nicusor Dan, had dealt a blow to hard-right and nationalist forces in central Europe by winning that country's presidential contest. Congratulations poured in from other nationalist and eurosceptic politicians in the region. The defeated hard-right candidate in Romania's election, George Simion, wrote on X 'Poland WON', while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed a 'fantastic victory'. The result could lend momentum to the Czech Republic's eurosceptic opposition leader and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis who leads opinion polls ahead of an October election. Babis offered 'warm congratulations' on X. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was convinced the EU could continue its 'very good cooperation' with Poland. Krzysztof Izdebski, policy director at the Batory Foundation, said the result meant 'Trump will have more to say in Polish politics'. Nawrocki, 42, a newcomer to politics who previously ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure economic and social policies favour Poles over other nationalities, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine. He vowed to protect Poland's sovereignty and railed against what he said was excessive interference in the country's affairs from Brussels. While Poland's parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and the EU. Borys Budka, a KO Member of the European Parliament, said he believed PiS now sought to 'overthrow the legal government'. 'This may be a big challenge for the government, which will be blocked when it comes to good initiatives,' he told state news channel TVP Info. Nawrocki won despite his past dominating the last days of the presidential campaign – from questions over his acquisition of a flat from a pensioner to an admission that he took part in orchestrated brawls. Turnout was 71.31%, the electoral commission said, a record for the second round of a presidential election.
