Latest news with #Poles
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Polish knife-edge presidential vote pits liberal mayor against conservative
Poles will vote for a new president on Sunday in a tight election that will have major consequences for the future of the country's pro-EU government. Opinion polls say Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and national conservative historian Karol Nawrocki are running neck and neck. Poland's president is a largely ceremonial role, but it does come with significant negative power. The president has the right to veto legislation, and the coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it. Karol Nawrocki is a staunch opponent of Donald Tusk's coalition, and he is expected to use the veto as much if not more frequently than the incumbent conservative President Andrzej Duda, who cannot run for a third consecutive term. Tusk has been unable to deliver many of his campaign promises since taking office 18 months ago due to Duda's veto and divisions within his coalition which includes conservatives, centrists and leftists. Tusk promised Polish women legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and voters he would repair the rule of law in the judiciary. Many critics say Poland's top courts were politicised under the previous Law and Justice-led (PiS) government that lost power in late 2023. On both issues, Tusk has made little headway. After narrowly winning the election's first round on 18 May, Rafal Trzaskowski pledged to co-operate with the government to accomplish both. Whichever candidate mobilises their voters in Sunday's second round run-off will be key to who becomes the next president. Another significant factor is who can attract the votes of two far-right candidates who placed third and fourth in the first round. The anti-establishment candidates received three times as many votes as they did in the last presidential election in 2020. While those voters support Nawrocki's socially conservative views, some libertarians disagree with his support for generous state benefits for the less well-off. Both candidates led large, rival patriotic marches in Warsaw last Sunday to show who had the biggest support. Almost all the participants at Nawrocki's rally carried the red-and-white Polish flag. No-one had the blue EU flag. One banner read "Enough of Tusk's [demolition] of democracy". Magdalena and her sister Marta said Nawrocki's patriotism was important. "We care first for our family, then the nation and after that the world," Magdalena told me. "A lot of politicians say, 'Oh, we can't do that because what will the Germans think about us?' Sorry, I don't care what they think," she said. Karol Nawrocki, 42, is head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that investigates crimes dating back to the communist era and World War Two. He was relatively unknown nationally before he was picked by PiS to run. According to the CBOS polling company, voters view him as someone who supports traditional Catholic values and stands up for average Poles, including small farmers who consider themselves threatened by the EU's Green Deal limiting the use of chemicals and greenhouse gases. His typical voter is seen as aged over 40, conservative and family-oriented and living in the countryside or small towns and cities. Previously he was director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk where he changed the exhibition to emphasise Polish heroism and suffering during the conflict. A keen amateur footballer and boxer, he likes to publish images of himself working out on social media. His strongman image has been pushed by Polish and foreign politicians alike. Ex-PM Mateusz Morawiecki posting a mock-up of Nawrocki as a Polish Captain America on social media. Supporter Magdalena said he wasn't particularly charismatic, but Poland needed "a strong man who will be stable when he's pushed by the world". Earlier this week, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem flew to a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Poland to endorse him as a "strong leader" like President Donald Trump. "I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen, he needs to be the next president of Poland," she said five days ahead of the vote. Noem said his rival Trzaskowski was "an absolute train wreck of a leader". Nawrocki's campaign has been bedevilled by revelations from his relatively unknown past, although so far the allegations appear not to have damaged his support. He does not deny taking part in football hooligan brawls, and has called them "noble fights". But in that he is not alone, as several years ago Donald Tusk spoke of taking part in similar fights as a young man. However he has strongly denied a series of other allegations - that he had links with gangsters and neo-Nazis; that he took advantage of an ill senior citizen to acquire his council flat at a huge discount; and that he helped arrange prostitutes for guests at the luxury Grand Hotel in the seaside resort of Sopot when he worked there as a security guard. Nawrocki has said he will donate the flat to charity and threatened to sue the news website that published the prostitute story because it was a "pack of lies". Many of his supporters think the the stories were made up by the mainstream media, which they see as largely pro-Trzaskowski. Shaking off the revelations, Nawrocki posted a video on social media set to an old Chumbawamba song, with the chorus, "I get knocked down, but I get up again". Trzaskowski's supporters have been more inclined to believe the allegations, with one man in Warsaw holding a banner reading: "No to the gangster". The son of a famous jazz pianist, the 53-year-old mayor of Warsaw is deputy leader of Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Platform party. He is also speaks multiple languages who once served as Europe minister. He was joined in last Sunday's march in Warsaw by another liberal mayor who won the Romanian presidency earlier this month. Nicusur Dan told supporters they shared the same values of a united and strong European Union. According to CBOS, Trzaskowski's typical voter is in his 30s, fairly well-off and lives in a city. Voters see him as having left-liberal views supporting LGBT and migrants' rights. While his opponents see Trzaskowski as part of Poland's privileged elite, supporter Malgorzata, a statistician, told me he was "an intelligent, professional European. That's enough to be a president of Poland". Against a backdrop of war in neighbouring Ukraine and the Tusk government's tough stance against illegal migration, Trzaskowski has portrayed himself, artificially according to some voters, as a man who believes in a strong nation state and patriotism. Another supporter, Bartosz, said he wanted Poland to remain safely anchored in Europe. "We know history. In 1939, we counted on Britain and France, but nobody came. If we are partners with Europe politically and economically, then it's in their interests to support us," he said. Warsaw's liberal mayor narrowly wins Polish presidential vote Polish voters set for tight presidential race after 10 years of Duda Polish presidential candidate ridiculed for donning disguise to promote book
France 24
16 hours ago
- Politics
- France 24
Poland's nail-biter election: Could Warsaw turn on Brussels?
Europe 43:22 From the show Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski will need the kind of boost in turnout that propelled his counterpart from Bucharest to victory, Nicoşur Dan who last weekend came to campaign for the candidate from Donald Tusk's Civic Platform. Trzaskowski's not the only one with celebrity endorsements. Donald Trump dispatching his director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to stump for nationalist right candidate Karol Nawrocki. The Law and Justice party of the outgoing Andrej Duda hopes to rally the 20-percent of voters who veered further to the right in the first round. In a nation where living standards have skyrocketed since joining the EU two decades ago, why are so many citizens eager to elect Eurosceptics? Would a Nawrocki win call time after just one year on the efforts of prime minister Tusk to undo the PiS' contentious rule of law reforms? Currently the former president of the European Council, seen here with the leaders of France and Germany, has positioned himself at the heart of Brussels policy making. Looking ahead, which direction do Poles want?
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
MAGA roadshow comes to Europe as trade war looms
The "Make America Great Again" roadshow arrived in Europe this week with events in two nations where American conservatives see prime opportunities for a new transatlantic political culture -- one molded by President Donald Trump's right-wing populism and imbued with grand "clash of civilizations" rhetoric. The Conservative Political Action Conference -- CPAC -- opened its week of European events on Tuesday in Jasionka, Poland, where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was among the speakers, urging Poles to vote for right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in this weekend's runoff election. Noem eschewed the diplomatic norm of non-alignment in elections in allied nations, as have other administration officials including Vice President JD Vance. "You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values," she told attendees in Jasionka. "We need you to elect the right leader," Noem said, dismissing Nawrocki's rival -- liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski -- as "an absolute train wreck of a leader." "Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country," Noem said. CPAC's next stop will be in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday, hosted by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- a totem of the European anti-establishment right wing who has long enjoyed cozy relations with Trump. Peter Kreko, the director of the Political Capital Institute in Budapest, said Orban is positioning himself as "another recipient of the MAGA soft power export." "Orban is still positioning himself as someone who is exporting his campaign tactics, who can help others in terms of campaign consultancy and provide help from the United States," Kreko said. "He's trading off of his good partnership with Donald Trump." On the web page promoting CPAC's Hungary event, the organization hit out at "corrupt elites" who it said "betray all that once made us great: patriotic virtue has been replaced by internationalism, common sense by bureaucracy and tradition by woke madness." "People on both sides of the Atlantic have risen up against this repackaged version of socialism, but success can only be complete when the tides of change converge and the age of patriotism begins at both poles of the West," CPAC wrote. MORE: Trump's impact on European politics: Rise of the right and liberals pushing back Internationalism is front and center in the CPAC event agendas. Among the speakers in Budapest will be American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Yair Netanyahu -- the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain's far-right Vox party. Also attending will be a host of other European conservative politicians from Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Estonia and Greece -- among others. "With the triumph of Donald Trump and the rise of the European Right, the Age of the Patriots of Western Civilization has begun -- CPAC Hungary 2025 will be the hub of this movement," the organizing website said. But the CPAC events come at a moment of peril for transatlantic relations. Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs threaten to touch off a costly trade war with the European Union. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the bloc. "Now we're going to charge the European Union," Trump said when unveiling his tariff plans in April. "They're very tough. Very, very tough traders. You know, you think of the European Union, very friendly. They rip us off. It's so sad to see. It's so pathetic." Trump announced last weekend that his planned 50% tariffs on EU goods would be delayed into July. But the bloc remains on a collision course with the Trump administration. The economic and political aspirations of all EU leaders rely heavily on the bloc's own fortunes, even for those populist leaders like Orban who so often define themselves in opposition to the grand European project. The president's European offensive could yet sour budding ties between the MAGA movement and its foreign allies, if the latter's "core interests appear directly threatened by Trumpism," Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, told ABC News. Kati Piri, Hungarian-born member of the Dutch parliament and the Labour Party's spokesperson for foreign affairs, migration and asylum, told ABC News in a statement that "Trump's unilateralist policies are designed to hurt all Europeans, and that so-called allies will not be spared." "Trump's continued threats of tariffs on EU products and global trade wars are making him an unpopular friend to have -- and this is fragmenting the unity of the global right," Piri suggested. MORE: Rubio in hot seat as he faces European leaders at NATO headquarters The glitz and glamour of CPAC's Budapest event will be welcome for Orban, Kreko said, as the prime minister grapples with his own domestic challenges -- not least the meteoric rise of liberal opposition leader Peter Magyar. Around 10,000 people rallied in Budapest earlier this month to protest government plans to restrict the rights of independent media organizations -- the latest in a wave of large protests against Orban and his Fidesz party government. Kreko said Orban's popularity is flagging after 15 years of uninterrupted power, even as he positions himself at the forefront of the nascent right-wing "illiberal international." "Orban is nowhere as popular as he was, let's say in 2022, when he won the last elections," Kreko said. "His popularity is waning, he is having a hard time getting it back and he also uses increasingly authoritarian tools to be able to keep power." "He has a hard time at home persuading his own constituency that the regime he is promoting all over the world is as powerful, as beautiful, as successful as it is seen by the MAGA camp in the United States," Kreko added. Trump's America has become the center of gravity of the global right-wing movement -- with the weight of the federal government and the broader national conservative movement behind it. This week Samuel Samson -- a senior advisor for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor -- gave an indication of the prevailing winds in American transatlantic policy, publishing an article setting out "the need for civilizational allies in Europe." Claiming the existence of "an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself," Samson accused European governments of having "devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance." Opening the CPAC event in Poland on Tuesday, chairman Matt Schlapp told attendees, "The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one -- to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us." That is why, he said, it was important to "win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere." For now, Kreko suggested the transatlantic MAGA project is incomplete, as did recent election results in Romania, Portugal and the first round of Poland's presidential vote in which conservative and far-right candidates did not win power. "What is common between Trump, Orban and many others in central and eastern Europe is that they really want to build this illiberal international," Kreko said. "But at the same time, we also have to be careful about overestimating its impact," he said. MAGA roadshow comes to Europe as trade war looms originally appeared on
a day ago
- Politics
MAGA roadshow comes to Europe as trade war looms
LONDON -- The "Make America Great Again" roadshow arrived in Europe this week with events in two nations where American conservatives see prime opportunities for a new transatlantic political culture -- one molded by President Donald Trump's right-wing populism and imbued with grand "clash of civilizations" rhetoric. The Conservative Political Action Conference -- CPAC -- opened its week of European events on Tuesday in Jasionka, Poland, where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was among the speakers, urging Poles to vote for right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in this weekend's runoff election. Noem eschewed the diplomatic norm of non-alignment in elections in allied nations, as have other administration officials including Vice President JD Vance. "You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values," she told attendees in Jasionka. "We need you to elect the right leader," Noem said, dismissing Nawrocki's rival -- liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski -- as "an absolute train wreck of a leader." "Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country," Noem said. CPAC's next stop will be in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday, hosted by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- a totem of the European anti-establishment right wing who has long enjoyed cozy relations with Trump. Peter Kreko, the director of the Political Capital Institute in Budapest, said Orban is positioning himself as "another recipient of the MAGA soft power export." "Orban is still positioning himself as someone who is exporting his campaign tactics, who can help others in terms of campaign consultancy and provide help from the United States," Kreko said. "He's trading off of his good partnership with Donald Trump." On the web page promoting CPAC's Hungary event, the organization hit out at "corrupt elites" who it said "betray all that once made us great: patriotic virtue has been replaced by internationalism, common sense by bureaucracy and tradition by woke madness." "People on both sides of the Atlantic have risen up against this repackaged version of socialism, but success can only be complete when the tides of change converge and the age of patriotism begins at both poles of the West," CPAC wrote. Internationalism is front and center in the CPAC event agendas. Among the speakers in Budapest will be American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Yair Netanyahu -- the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain's far-right Vox party. Also attending will be a host of other European conservative politicians from Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Estonia and Greece -- among others. "With the triumph of Donald Trump and the rise of the European Right, the Age of the Patriots of Western Civilization has begun -- CPAC Hungary 2025 will be the hub of this movement," the organizing website said. But the CPAC events come at a moment of peril for transatlantic relations. Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs threaten to touch off a costly trade war with the European Union. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the bloc. "Now we're going to charge the European Union," Trump said when unveiling his tariff plans in April. "They're very tough. Very, very tough traders. You know, you think of the European Union, very friendly. They rip us off. It's so sad to see. It's so pathetic." Trump announced last weekend that his planned 50% tariffs on EU goods would be delayed into July. But the bloc remains on a collision course with the Trump administration. The economic and political aspirations of all EU leaders rely heavily on the bloc's own fortunes, even for those populist leaders like Orban who so often define themselves in opposition to the grand European project. The president's European offensive could yet sour budding ties between the MAGA movement and its foreign allies, if the latter's "core interests appear directly threatened by Trumpism," Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, told ABC News. Kati Piri, Hungarian-born member of the Dutch parliament and the Labour Party's spokesperson for foreign affairs, migration and asylum, told ABC News in a statement that "Trump's unilateralist policies are designed to hurt all Europeans, and that so-called allies will not be spared." "Trump's continued threats of tariffs on EU products and global trade wars are making him an unpopular friend to have -- and this is fragmenting the unity of the global right," Piri suggested. The glitz and glamour of CPAC's Budapest event will be welcome for Orban, Kreko said, as the prime minister grapples with his own domestic challenges -- not least the meteoric rise of liberal opposition leader Peter Magyar. Around 10,000 people rallied in Budapest earlier this month to protest government plans to restrict the rights of independent media organizations -- the latest in a wave of large protests against Orban and his Fidesz party government. Kreko said Orban's popularity is flagging after 15 years of uninterrupted power, even as he positions himself at the forefront of the nascent right-wing "illiberal international." "Orban is nowhere as popular as he was, let's say in 2022, when he won the last elections," Kreko said. "His popularity is waning, he is having a hard time getting it back and he also uses increasingly authoritarian tools to be able to keep power." "He has a hard time at home persuading his own constituency that the regime he is promoting all over the world is as powerful, as beautiful, as successful as it is seen by the MAGA camp in the United States," Kreko added. Trump's America has become the center of gravity of the global right-wing movement -- with the weight of the federal government and the broader national conservative movement behind it. This week Samuel Samson -- a senior advisor for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor -- gave an indication of the prevailing winds in American transatlantic policy, publishing an article setting out "the need for civilizational allies in Europe." Claiming the existence of "an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself," Samson accused European governments of having "devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance." Opening the CPAC event in Poland on Tuesday, chairman Matt Schlapp told attendees, "The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one -- to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us." That is why, he said, it was important to "win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere." For now, Kreko suggested the transatlantic MAGA project is incomplete, as did recent election results in Romania, Portugal and the first round of Poland's presidential vote in which conservative and far-right candidates did not win power. "What is common between Trump, Orban and many others in central and eastern Europe is that they really want to build this illiberal international," Kreko said.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
a day ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Poland holds presidential runoff, which Trump had sought to influence
Poland's presidential election has come down to a stark ideological choice: a liberal pro-European mayor versus a staunch nationalist conservative. They are polling so close that the outcome is impossible to predict in the run-off round on Sunday. It's not just a domestic affair. President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind the nationalist candidate, Karol Nawrocki, and dangled the prospect of closer military ties if Poles choose him over liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. A contest with global implications Trump met with Nawrocki earlier this month at the White House and sent his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to a meeting of the conservative pressure group CPAC in Poland, where she offered a strong endorsement. Noem even dangled the prospect of closer US-Polish military ties in the event of a Nawrocki win with the implied warning that a Trzaskowski victory could jeopardize Poland's security. At stake is not only Poland's domestic course but also the international standing of a key European Union and NATO member on the alliance's eastern flank, in a region gripped by anxiety over Russia's war in Ukraine. Sunday's vote will either empower Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a pro-EU reformer, with a presidential ally who can advance his rule-of-law agenda or saddle him with a rival who could veto legislation and block government initiatives. Trzaskowski's supporters argue that a pro-European leader would enhance Poland's global standing during a time of war in Europe. Nawrocki's backers believe only conservative rule can safeguard national sovereignty and traditional Christian values, and they say Trump's support would greatly enhance Poland's security. Growing support for the populist right But the candidate who may ultimately decide the outcome is one who won't appear on the runoff ballot. Slawomir Mentzen, a 38-year-old far-right politician and beer producer from the central city of Torun, finished third in the first round of voting on May 18, with nearly 15 per cent of the vote. Though eliminated, his supporters often young, anti-establishment, and deeply sceptical of both Brussels and Poland's political establishment have become the most sought-after constituency in the country. Both remaining candidates have gone out of their way to court Mentzen and his base. In recent days, each man travelled to the north-central Polish town of Torun, famous for being the birthplace of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, to appear on Mentzen's YouTube channel, where he has built a following with a mix of libertarian economics, nationalist rhetoric, and anti-EU invective. His influence highlights a broader shift in Polish politics, where the far right once considered a fringe force is increasingly shaping the national agenda. It's also part of a larger trend of hard-right parties gaining traction across Europe. The appeal of right-wing forces in changing times Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Warsaw office, says Poland is part of a larger pattern in which voters turn to populist forces amid rapid social change. But he also cites local factors, such as disillusionment with Tusk's coalition. That coalition, which spans the ideological spectrum, has struggled to agree on key issues, including liberalizing the abortion law a campaign promise. Meanwhile, outgoing conservative President Andrzej Duda has blocked parts of Tusk's agenda. Observers say the coalition's voters must be highly mobilized on Sunday to defeat Nawrocki. Many votes in the first round went to protest candidates. Among voters aged 1829, over 35 per cent backed Mentzen, and nearly 20 per cent supported a far-left candidate, Adrian Zandberg, according to exit polls. In addition, an extreme right-wing antisemite, Grzegorz Braun, won more than 6 per cent of the votes overall. Buras believes right-wing protest candidates are more appealing today than those on the left because they promise to restore a lost past, while the left promises a better future that many see as unattainable. The world is changing, society is changing very fast, much faster than anytime in the past," Buras said. People are worried and they vote for those who say we can go back to the glorious past. Campaigning on a YouTube stage Since the first round, Mentzen co-leader of the Confederation party has presented both candidates with an eight-point list of demands: no new taxes; defence of cash payments; expanded gun rights; and opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine, among others. Nawrocki, who appeared on Mentzen's show on June 22, signed on to all eight points including the controversial Ukraine stance breaking with his Law and Justice party's longstanding support for Kyiv's integration with the West. Trzaskowski appeared two days later. He said he could agree with some points, like fiscal restraint, but rejected others. He strongly defended LGBTQ+ rights and reaffirmed that Ukraine should eventually join NATO, once the war ends, calling it key to Poland's own security. The YouTube interviews have dominated the political conversation, underscoring how Mentzen, a TikTok-savvy outsider, has upended traditional campaigning. The exchange between Trzaskowski and Mentzen on Saturday was occasionally tense, especially over LGBTQ+ rights, but remained civil and substantive. In many ways it overshadowed a traditional televised debate the day before. The substance of that debate did not seem to change the trajectory of the campaign. The thing Poles discussed most was a brief moment when Nawrocki inserted something into his mouth which he later said was a tobacco pouch. Some have questioned if he is fit to be president if he couldn't get through a two-hour debate without taking a hit of tobacco. A post-debate meeting over beer After the sometimes sharp exchanges, Mentzen sat down for a beer with Trzaskowski and others in the pub he owns. The informal gathering was documented by Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who was there as well. He posted a video on social media Saturday evening showing the group with the words: For a Poland that unites, not divides. The video quickly went viral, with commentators speculating about whether it was a spontaneous gesture or a calculated political move. It was also one more example, if more were needed, of how far-right forces in Europe are slowly becoming accepted. For Mentzen, the moment was also awkward. The man who made his name skewering the political elite appeared cozy with establishment figures. Critics on the hard right lashed out, revealing fractures in the movement he helped popularize. After dangling the promises of an endorsement for days, Mentzen on Wednesday afternoon said he wouldn't offer one to either candidate. Vote as your conscience tells you, he told his supporters.
