Professor Henry Srebrnik

Professor Henry Srebrnik

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Polish Election Reveals a Divided Country

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Poland is a complicated country, with a long and complicated history, which gives it a complicated political culture. This was demonstrated yet again by the June 1 presidential election, won by the right-wing candidate, hardline nationalist Karol Nawrocki, who beat his liberal opponent, Rafal Trzaskowski.

The vote was extremely close, 50.9 to 49.1 per cent, and the result exemplifies the country’s polarized politics, in a contest that was held against the backdrop of two other presidents, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

As recently as last fall, most Poles had never heard of Karol Nawrocki, president of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Trzaskowski seemed to have victory in the bag before the campaign had even got underway. In the early days of the campaign, he was 10 per cent and more ahead of his rival. 

Nawrocki was endorsed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, founded by the Kaczynski brothers, Jaroslaw and Lech, while Trzaskowski was backed by current Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO).

Poland’s constitution is a version of semi-presidentialism, in which the president and prime minister both have genuine political power. This can require what is known as cohabitation, in the situation where the parliamentary majority forming the government selects the prime minister, while the president is elected by in a national vote -- but where the two represent opposing political camps. This necessitates compromise but also carries risks of conflicts and mutual blocking of decisions.

 It was a study in personal contrasts: Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal, internationally known Mayor of Warsaw, faced off against Nawrocki, a political outsider with limited public service experience. Beneath this personal drama lay a deeper political confrontation. It was a referendum on two visions for Poland: a western-facing country or a sovereignty-driven project increasingly shaped by the wind of change brought to Europe by the return of Donald Trump.

A Polish president wields considerable influence over foreign affairs and national security. With Nawrocki now installed in the presidential palace, Poland is heading into a turbulent period between Nawrocki and Tusk’s government.

Donald Tusk became prime minister in late 2023, putting an end to eight years of PiS rule and setting the stage for a thawing of relations with the European Union. His coalition government announced that it would be tasked with reversing what it called democratic backsliding. The country’s legal institutions had turned into battlegrounds with the opposing camps disputing or simply ignoring unfavourable rulings.

Warsaw had also seen tens of billions of euros of EU funds frozen due to a dispute with Brussels over democratic standards, but Tusk, a former European Council president, vowed to mend relations and unblock the cash.

Tusk and the PO banked on Trzaskowski beating Nawrocki, putting an end to the battles with the outgoing conservative president, Andrzej Duda. Duda used his powers to prevent Tusk delivering key campaign promises, including removing political influence from the judiciary and liberalizing the country’s strict marriage and abortion laws.

As Poland’s new president, Nawrocki is likely to use his presidential power of veto to block Tusk’s pro-EU program. Nawrocki’s strategy appears set -- weaken the Tusk administration, fuel public disillusionment with the ruling coalition, and perhaps, by refusing to sign the 2026 budget, even paving the way for early parliamentary elections in 2027. A government led by the re-energized PiS in coalition with the far-right Confederation party is no longer a far-fetched scenario.

In EU affairs, Nawrocki is likely to adopt a confrontational tone, criticizing the European Commission for allegedly favouring political opponents and framing migration and climate policy as infringements on national sovereignty. Relations with Germany are also likely to sour. The issue of Second World War reparations could resurface. Germany’s rising defence budget may be recast as a latent threat – particularly for older voters with strong historical memories of German militarism. Nawrocki accused Tusk of being “Germany’s valet.”

But on NATO, Nawrocki will maintain Poland’s firmly anti-Russian stance. Right-wing parties in France, Germany and Hungary may be NATO skeptics, but this will never fly in Poland, which suffered from Russian aggression and partitions from the late 18th century through 1918, a further invasion in cooperation with Nazi Germany in 1939, and a postwar Soviet-dominated state until 1989. Some groups concerned with the difficult historical issues between Poles and Ukrainians have been skeptical about the extent of Polish aid for Ukrainians, and Nawrocki does not currently support Ukraine’s accession to NATO or the EU.

Nawrocki will seek to align Poland more closely with a Trump-led United States. He flew to Washington during the election campaign for a brief meeting -- and to get a thumbs-up photo of himself with Trump in the Oval Office. He also benefits from the fact that Poland is projected to reach five per cent of its GDP in 2026 in defence spending -- the highest percentage of all NATO allies. Poland has always been the most pro-American country in central and eastern Europe.

Having advocated for traditional and Catholic values, and against immigration, during the campaign, Nawrocki’s stance will resonate with an important segment of Trump’s electorate and high-level administration officials. Interestingly, while the Polish diaspora as a whole voted 63.5 per cent for Trzaskowski, the U.S.-based diaspora supported Nawrocki to the tune of 56.7 per cent.

 

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