Latest news with #PolandElection
Sky News
3 hours ago
- Business
- Sky News
Poland votes in tight presidential election between pro-EU candidate and nationalist rival
Voters in Poland have been casting their ballots in the country's presidential election - with the outcome believed to be on a knife-edge. Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who is a liberal pro-EU candidate, is battling conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, who draws inspiration from Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The vote is being closely watched in neighbouring Ukraine as well as in Russia, the European Union and the United States. The result will mean Poland either cements its place in the EU's mainstream or takes a more nationalist path like MAGA. Mr Trzaskowski, from the ruling centrists Civic Coalition (KO), has a narrow lead in the opinion polls over Mr Nawrocki, who is backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS). But the lead is within the margin of error. How do the candidates differ? Mr Trzaskowski has said strong ties with both Brussels and Washington DC are vital for his country's security, but Mr Nawrocki, who met President Trump in the White House in May, puts relations with the US first. Both candidates agree that Poland has to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's full-scale invasion that started in February 2022. But while Mr Trzaskowski sees Ukraine's future NATO membership as key for Poland's security, his election opponent recently said he would not ratify it as president, as this could draw the alliance into a war with Russia. Mr Trzaskowski, 53, has vowed to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions, introduce civil partnerships for LGBT couples, and promote better ties with European partners. Mr Nawrocki, 42, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values, sceptical of the EU and aligned with US conservatives. His supporters believe Mr Trzaskowski, with his pro-EU views, would hand over control of key Polish affairs to larger European powers like France and Germany. What happened in the first round? The run-off follows a tightly contested first round on 18 May, in which Mr Trzaskowski won just over 31% while Mr Nawrocki got almost 30%, as 11 other candidates were knocked out. With conservative President Andrzej Duda completing his second and final term, the new president will have significant influence over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist government can carry out its agenda. Parliament holds most of the power in Poland - but the president can veto laws. The polls are due to close at 9pm local time (8pm UK time), with exit polls coming out soon after.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Poland votes in tight presidential election between pro-EU candidate and nationalist rival
Voters in Poland have been casting their ballots in the country's presidential election - with the outcome believed to be on a knife-edge. Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who is a liberal pro-EU candidate, is battling conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, who draws inspiration from Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The vote is being closely watched in neighbouring Ukraine as well as in Russia, the European Union and the United States. The result will mean Poland either cements its place in the EU's mainstream or takes a more nationalist path like MAGA. Mr Trzaskowski, from the ruling centrists Civic Coalition (KO), has a narrow lead in the opinion polls over Mr Nawrocki, who is backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS). But the lead is within the margin of error. How do the candidates differ? Mr Trzaskowski has said strong ties with both Brussels and Washington DC are vital for his country's security, but Mr Nawrocki, who met President Trump in the White House in May, puts relations with the US first. Both candidates agree that Poland has to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's full-scale invasion that started in February 2022. But while Mr Trzaskowski sees Ukraine's future NATO membership as key for Poland's security, his election opponent recently said he would not ratify it as president, as this could draw the alliance into a war with Russia. Mr Trzaskowski, 53, has vowed to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions, introduce civil partnerships for LGBT couples, and promote better ties with European partners. Mr Nawrocki, 42, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values, sceptical of the EU and aligned with US conservatives. His supporters believe Mr Trzaskowski, with his pro-EU views, would hand over control of key Polish affairs to larger European powers like France and Germany. Read more from Sky News:Two dead and hundreds of arrests after PSG win What happened in the first round? The run-off follows a tightly contested first round on 18 May, in which Mr Trzaskowski won just over 31% while Mr Nawrocki got almost 30%, as 11 other candidates were knocked out. With conservative President Andrzej Duda completing his second and final term, the new president will have significant influence over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist government can carry out its agenda. Parliament holds most of the power in Poland - but the president can veto laws. The polls are due to close at 9pm local time (8pm UK time), with exit polls coming out soon after. The electoral commission has said it hopes the final results will be announced on Monday morning or the afternoon.
Khaleej Times
5 hours ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Poland holds tight presidential polls with EU role at stake
Voters in Poland began casting ballots on Sunday in a tight presidential election with major implications for the country's role in Europe, and for abortion and LGBTQ rights. Warsaw's pro-EU mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 53, an ally of the centrist government, was facing off against nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki, 42. Opinion polls suggest the race was too tight to call. Polls close at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) in the country, a member of the EU and Nato that borders Ukraine and has been a key supporter of its neighbour in the war against Russia. An exit poll was expected as soon as ballots close and election officials predicted that the final result will be known on Monday. "I'm voting for Trzaskowski. He's educated, speaks many languages, is intelligent, just all round great," said Agnieszka Lewinska, a 56-year-old cleaner in the town of Halinow just outside the capital. Warsaw pensioner Lila Chojecka, 60, said she cast her ballot for Nawrocki. "Catholic values are important to me. I know he shares them," she told AFP, calling the candidate "hope for Poland". A victory for Trzaskowski would be a major boost for the progressive agenda of the government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council president. It could mean significant social changes such as the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples and an easing of a near-total ban on abortion. Presidents in Poland, a fast-growing economy of 38 million people, have the power to veto legislation and are also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. A victory for Nawrocki would embolden the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, and could lead to fresh parliamentary elections. Many Nawrocki supporters want stricter curbs on immigration and advocate for conservative values and more sovereignty for the country within the European Union. "We should not give in to European pressure," 40-year-old Agnieszka Prokopiuk, a homemaker, said ahead of the vote. "We need to make our own way... and not succumb to trends from the West," she told AFP in the city of Biala Podlaska in eastern Poland near the Belarus border. Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a politics expert, called the election "a real clash of civilisations" because of the wide policy differences between the candidates. Many Trzaskowski voters support greater integration within the EU and an acceleration of social reforms. Malgorzata Wojciechowska, a tour guide and teacher in her fifties, said Polish women "unfortunately do not have the same rights as our European friends". "I hope that Rafal Trzaskowski will relaunch the debate on abortion so that we can finally live in a free country where we can have our own opinion," she told AFP. The election is also being watched closely in Ukraine, which is seeking to bolster international support in its negotiations with Russia as Moscow's invasion grinds on. Nawrocki, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, opposes Nato membership for Kyiv and has called for curbs on benefits for the estimated one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland. He used his last campaign hours on Friday to leave flowers at a monument to Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II. "It was a genocide against the Polish people," he said. The election's final result is expected to hinge on whether Trzaskowski can mobilise enough supporters and whether far-right voters will cast their ballots for Nawrocki. Far-right candidates secured more than 21 per cent of the vote in the election's first round, which Trzaskowski won by a razor-thin margin of 31 percent against 30 per cent for Nawrocki.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Rafał Trzaskowski: Warsaw mayor with foreign policy experience
Pro-EU presidential candidate Rafał Trzaskowski, a close ally of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is a political scientist and one of the most prominent intellectuals in Poland's liberal-conservative camp. The 53-year-old with the fashionable three-day stubble only just missed election in 2020, when he came in behind outgoing right-wing President Andrzej Duda. Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski studied in Paris and Oxford and speaks English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian in addition to his native Polish. During Tusk's first term in office, he was appointed minister for administration and digitalization in 2013, going on to become deputy foreign minister. Trzaskowski has been mayor of the capital since 2018, sweeping to victory in the first round on re-election last year. While he has modernized Warsaw by extending public transport and investing in culture, he has also drawn criticism for wasting public funds. Construction of a lavatory in a park cost €150,000 ($170,000) – an amount that would buy a home in rural Poland. Trzaskowski is internationally experienced, intelligent, handsome and mediagenic, but evident membership of the cosmopolitan elite makes few friends among the country's small farmers. In Tusk's ruling liberal-conservative coalition, the father of two is seen as on the left due to support of LGBT rights, his regular appearance at Pride Parades and his removal of crucifixes from Warsaw administrative offices. In strongly Catholic rural Poland, he is seen as abandoning traditional values.
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- General
- Irish Times
Polls open in Poland for close-fought presidential election
Polls have opened in Poland for the second round of the presidential election, with the two candidates offering radically different visions for the country locked in a dead heat. The race pits the pro-European Warsaw mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by Donald Tusk 's politically-diverse governing coalition, against the historian and former amateur boxer Karol Nawrocki, endorsed by the populist-right Law and Justice (PiS) party that governed the country between 2015 and 2023. While the role of the Polish president is largely ceremonial, it carries some influence over foreign and defence policy and a critical power to veto new legislation. This can only be overturned with a majority of three-fifths in parliament, which the current government does not have. At stake is whether Tusk's government will be able to make progress on its electoral promises on the rule of law and social issues, including abortion and LGBTQ rights, after 18 months of difficult cohabitation with the opposition president, Andrzej Duda. READ MORE A Nawrocki win would prolong the current deadlock, making it difficult for the government to pass any major reforms before the 2027 parliamentary election. Prof Aleks Szczerbiak, who teaches east and central European politics at the University of Sussex, said: 'Tusk knows the stakes and that if Nawrocki wins, he's got a lame-duck administration for the next couple of years. And it will be worse than with Duda as Nawrocki will come in fresh, with a new mandate from what effectively turned into a referendum on the government.' In the final days of the campaign, both candidates sought to court voters of candidates knocked out in the first round and mobilise their supporters, with analysts stressing that less than 200,000 votes could decide the outcome of the race. Polls showed the difference between the two candidates to be within the margin of error, making it the closest election in Poland's post-1989 history. On Friday night, the country went into electoral silence, which forbids further campaigning and new polls. This left voters with little more than 24 hours to reflect on a brutal and polarising campaign. Trzaskowski, the Oxford-educated Warsaw mayor since 2018 who previously held ministerial posts and served in the European parliament, sought to project himself as a safe pair of hands to work with the government on implementing progressive reforms. However, his campaign faced difficulties because of close links to the unpopular Tusk government. He also had to defend himself against suggestions he is out-of-touch and elitist, and against allegations about foreign funding for online advertising promoting his candidacy. In turn, Nawrocki is new to politics. Since 2021, he has led the Institute of National Remembrance, a state research institute with public prosecution powers investigating historical crimes against Poland. Formally an independent but endorsed by PiS, he offers a new face to the party which is burdened by the polarising legacy of its eight years in power. He received public support from the US president, Donald Trump, and members of his administration, as well as the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán. But his campaign was beset with allegations of impropriety related to his past, including questions over his acquisition of an apartment from an older man and his admission that he took part in an organised fight between 140 football hooligans in his youth. A win for Nawrocki could also alter Poland's supportive position toward Ukraine. He repeatedly spoke about the difficult history between the two nations and declared his opposition to Ukrainian membership in Nato. The polls will close at 9pm local time (8pm in Ireland), with exit polls to follow. However, the race is expected to be too close to call, with the focus shifting to late polls and official results dripping in overnight. -Guardian
