Latest news with #PolandElection
Bloomberg
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Tusk Says Ballot Recount Unlikely to Reverse Presidential Result
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said suspected voting irregularities in the country's June 1 presidential election were unlikely to lead to a reversal of the victory of nationalist Karol Nawrocki. The premier called for a recount of votes from some polling station in the contest, in which his ally, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, was narrowly defeated. Poland's Supreme Court, which validates the election, received thousands of complaints after the tight election.
Reuters
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Hungary's Orban lauds MAGA advance after Nawrocki's win in Poland
BUDAPEST, June 6 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that nationalist Karol Nawrocki's victory in Poland's presidential election was "fantastically good", hailing the success of an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Eurosceptic Karol Nawrocki narrowly won the Polish presidential election on Sunday, delivering a big blow to the efforts of Donald Tusk's centrist government to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation. "From a Hungarian perspective, I think the outcome is fantastically good, as there is a pro-Ukrainian, pro-war, pro-Brussels liberal government operating in Poland," Orban said in an interview on state Kossuth radio. Orban, also an ally of Trump, said he interpreted Nawrocki's victory as the "continuation of the patriot's advance." "One could also say that the 'Washington Express' has arrived in Warsaw," Orban said, alluding to Nawrocki's election as a victory for European conservatives inspired by Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Both Tusk's government and its conservative nationalist predecessor have been staunch supporters of Ukraine in the war triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion and have been critical of Orban's tilt towards Moscow. Nawrocki has said Poland must continue to support Kyiv's war effort, but in a break with the policy of previous governments in Warsaw, he opposes NATO membership for Ukraine. For his part, Orban has refused to send weapons to Ukraine since the start of the war and kept close relations with Moscow. Orban publicly endorsed Nawrocki ahead of the second round of Poland's election.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hungary's Orban lauds MAGA advance after Nawrocki's win in Poland
BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that nationalist Karol Nawrocki's victory in Poland's presidential election was "fantastically good", hailing the success of an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Eurosceptic Karol Nawrocki narrowly won the Polish presidential election on Sunday, delivering a big blow to the efforts of Donald Tusk's centrist government to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation. "From a Hungarian perspective, I think the outcome is fantastically good, as there is a pro-Ukrainian, pro-war, pro-Brussels liberal government operating in Poland," Orban said in an interview on state Kossuth radio. Orban, also an ally of Trump, said he interpreted Nawrocki's victory as the "continuation of the patriot's advance." "One could also say that the 'Washington Express' has arrived in Warsaw," Orban said, alluding to Nawrocki's election as a victory for European conservatives inspired by Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Both Tusk's government and its conservative nationalist predecessor have been staunch supporters of Ukraine in the war triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion and have been critical of Orban's tilt towards Moscow. Nawrocki has said Poland must continue to support Kyiv's war effort, but in a break with the policy of previous governments in Warsaw, he opposes NATO membership for Ukraine. For his part, Orban has refused to send weapons to Ukraine since the start of the war and kept close relations with Moscow. Orban publicly endorsed Nawrocki ahead of the second round of Poland's election.
Reuters
03-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
Polish parliament speaker says confidence vote should be next week
WARSAW, June 3 (Reuters) - Polish Parliament Speaker Szymon Holownia proposed on Tuesday that a vote of confidence in the government should take place in a week at an additional session of parliament. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday he would call for a parliamentary vote of confidence in his coalition government, after his candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, lost a presidential election on Sunday. "We are hearing information that it should be soon. I convinced the Prime Minister that we should wait with this for a while," Holownia told journalists. "I suggested to the Prime Minister that the motion be submitted this week so that we can discuss it at an additional session on Tuesday." Nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki narrowly won Poland's presidential election, delivering a blow to the centrist government's efforts to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Populist Karol Nawrocki wins Polish presidential election, setting stage for more clashes with PM Tusk
A historian and populist firebrand who boasted about his brawls with soccer hooligans has narrowly won Poland's presidential election, in a political upset that could torpedo the centrist government's efforts to unspool the legacy of authoritarianism in the country. Karol Nawrocki, the candidate aligned with Poland's right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, won 50.89% of the vote, defeating the liberal mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski – long the favorite to win – in a head-to-head run-off. The result extends PiS' 10-year occupancy of the presidential palace and could spell disaster for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose pledge to erase PiS' fingerprints from Poland's embattled institutions saw him clash repeatedly with the outgoing President Andrzej Duda. Nawrocki is a champion of US President Donald Trump and visited the White House in the weeks before the election. He was the underdog throughout the campaign, but came a close second to Trzaskowski in the first round of voting two weeks ago, having survived a series of damaging stories about his past. He picked up a late endorsement from the third-placed, far-right candidate. The 42-year-old historian will now yield the hugely powerful presidential veto, which Duda used frequently to thwart Tusk's agenda. The European Union has looked to Tusk for a blueprint on undoing the effects of populism on a democracy – but a victory for Nawrocki was not part of the plan. Though Polish presidential candidates often stand as individuals, rather than representatives of a party, there is little hiding their affiliations, and each major party historically endorses and campaigns for a candidate. Tusk ousted PiS from government in a heated parliamentary election in 2023, but Nawrocki's victory denies him an open road to fully undo the transformation of the Polish state overseen by PiS during an eight-year stint in government. On Monday, Tusk said he will 'soon' call for a parliamentary vote of confidence in his coalition government, according to Reuters. He added in a televised speech that his party wants to show the world they 'understand the gravity of the moment, but that we do not intend to take a single step back.' Nawrocki is a first-time politician who has led two influential cultural bodies in Poland – the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and then the Institute of National Remembrance, a state-funded research facility whose purpose became increasingly politicized as PiS took a nationalist approach to the telling of Polish history. He ran a campaign that was seemingly stuck in defensive mode. Scandals about his alleged use of a Gdansk apartment as a second home and his supposed ties to the northern port city's underworld dogged his run. In March it even emerged that he had appeared on a television show, in disguise and with his face blurred, to praise his own book. And when confronted with claims that he took part in organized fights between rival soccer fans – known in Poland as an ustawka, or 'set up' – Nawrocki sought to use the revelations to his advantage, describing the clashes as 'noble,' according to CNN affiliate TVN24. On the campaign trail, he emphasized his Catholic faith, pledged to reduce migration, and was relentlessly critical of Brussels and of Tusk. He received a late flurry of support from attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which held its first-ever gathering in Poland earlier this week, cementing a years-long convergence between the populist right movements in Poland and the US. His victory looked unlikely until the first round of voting two weeks ago, which showed him narrowly behind Trzaskowski and revealed greater levels of support than expected for a smattering of far-right and extreme-right figures, some of whom subsequently said they would vote for Nawrocki. The result is the worst-case scenario for Tusk's government, which was elected after eight toxic years in Polish politics but which has labored in recent months to deliver on its ambitious agenda. Tusk had hoped that a Trzaskowski presidency would remove the last major roadblock to his efforts to renew the independence of Poland's judiciary, media and cultural bodies. Instead, the result sets the stage for a new round of confrontations between Poland's president and prime minister. Nawrocki will be expected to follow the blueprint set by Duda, who blocked several attempts by Tusk to undo the PiS' judicial reforms and stalled progress on bills relating to hate crime and contraception access, either by vetoing them or sending them into legal gridlock. 'I'm sorry that I didn't manage to convince the majority of citizens of my vision of Poland,' Trzaskowski wrote on X. And it essentially snuffs out any prospect that Poland's near-total abortion ban and its prohibition of same-sex civil partnerships will be undone. Tusk had promised to relax both bans, but they are supported by some of the more socially conservative lawmakers propping up his government, and the threat of a presidential veto likely renders any efforts at persuasion futile.
