Poland faces a razor-thin presidential run-off, with polls showing just a one to two per cent gap between the leading candidates: nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki and liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, with a margin of error that leaves the outcome wide open. RFI spoke to veteran political observer Marcin Swiecicki, a former mayor of Warsaw.
“The decisive second round has become unpredictable,” Swiecicki told RFI, as the campaign is increasingly dominated by personal attacks and controversies rather than substantive policy debate.
A significant factor in the run-off is the influence of ultra-conservative voters, whose candidate secured about 20 per cent in the first round.
Their support has pushed the mainstream conservative contender further to the right, as he agreed to a series of hardline demands — including opposition to European treaties, the euro, and Ukraine’s NATO membership, as well as maintaining strict abortion laws — in exchange for their backing.
“The conservative candidate agreed to all these ultra-conservative demands, so somehow he moved towards more ultra-conservative positions than he, and even his party, previously held,” Swiecicki says.
He added, however, that this shift “may not guarantee” the support of all ultra-conservative voters, many of whom are young and may find the conservative candidate “not very attractive, boring sometimes,” in contrast to the more dynamic, pro-European Mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski.
It a pity somehow that these ultra-conservative candidates are a decisive factor.
REMARK by former Warsaw mayor Marcin Swiecicki
For Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a pro-EU reformer, Sunday’s vote is crucial: it will either empower him 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.
The second round of Poland’s elections takes place two weeks after elections in Romania, where centrist former Mayor of Bucharest Nicusor Dan defeated the far-right candidate George Simion.
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'Public disappointment'
In Poland, which for years was governed by an ultra-conservative administration and only last year saw a change with the election of Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform, the battle is far from over.
Despite a year under the new pro-European government, Swiecicki observed a “sense of public disappointment,” citing limited achievements and ongoing political deadlock. The conservative president’s power to veto legislation—overridable only by a 60 per cent parliamentary majority, which the current coalition does not possess—has obstructed reform efforts.
This political duality has left key issues unresolved, including judicial reforms and ambassadorial appointments. “To put order into this, you need close cooperation between the parliamentary majority and the president,” Swiecicki said.
On social policy, Swiecicki noted little difference between the two candidates, who both “support social allowances, maintaining the current retirement age, and benefits for families with children.” However, he warned that the dominance of right-wing forces has curtailed debate on more contentious issues such as abortion, European integration, and LGBTQ+ rights.
The conservative PiS party is known for endorsing declarations from over 90 conservative regions and municipalities that have proclaimed themselves “LGBT Ideology-Free Zones” or signed “Family Charters” aimed at protecting children from what they describe as immoral influences—implicitly targeting LGBTQ+ people and denying rights to same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, Civic Platform and its candidate Trzaskowski have signed a 12-point LGBT declaration aimed at improving support and protection for LGBTQ+ individuals. The declaration proposes measures such as providing shelter for LGBTQ+ teenagers rejected by their families, establishing local crisis helplines, and introducing anti-discrimination policies and sex education in city schools.
Consensus remains on foreign policy, particularly with regard to Ukraine, with broad support for aiding Kyiv and keeping Russian forces at bay. The only recent divergence has been the conservative candidate’s pledge—made under pressure from ultra-conservatives—not to support Ukraine’s NATO membership, a move Swiecicki described as tactical rather than ideological.
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Poland and Ukraine
Meanwhile, as the current holder of the European Council presidency, Poland has made incremental progress on EU security and defence coordination, Swiecicki said, particularly in supporting Ukraine and in joint armaments procurement.
Swiecicki underscores Poland’s strategic interest in seeing Ukraine join both the EU and NATO, despite lingering historical disputes over Second World War-era massacres and the exhumation of victims, which periodically resurface and risk jeopardising the broader relationship.
The “Volhynia massacres” were carried out over a two-year period during the Second World War in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of segments of the local Ukrainian population. Up to 100,000 members of the Polish community—a minority living in Volhynia, in what is now western Ukraine—were killed.
Since the beginning of this century, a slow process of reconciliation has begun, marked by mutual visits and commemorations. However, the issue of exhuming the bodies remains unresolved.
Only in January did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reach an agreement to permit the unearthing of the victims’ remains, though no concrete dates have yet been set. Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz , told broadcaster Polsat that failing to fully resolve the Volhynia issue would impact Poland’s support for Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.
But Swiecicki is more optimistic. “It is Poland’s strategic interest to have Ukraine in the European Union and in NATO. So these disputes over exhumation cannot really kill the idea of having Ukraine with us, rather than leaving it to the Russians, to the Kremlin,” he says.
Foreign interference
Meanwhile, US President Donald J. 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 delivered a strong endorsement.
Noem even suggested closer US-Polish military ties in the event of a Nawrocki victory, with the implied warning that a Trzaskowski win could jeopardise Poland’s security.
Hungary’s "illiberal" Prime Minister, Viktor Orban - who maintains close ties with the Kremlin - also offered his support to Nawrocki at a CPAC meeting in Budapest on Thursday.
