By The Polish presidential elections have been one of the most important elections in Europe. In the first round, there was no clear winner, so everything was left to the second round, which was going to be very close.
A month ago, on June 1, 2025, Poles went to the polls to elect their next president. The second round was very close, and in fact, there were two different exit polls, neither of which indicated who would be president. Finally, Karol Nawrocki, the candidate supported by Law and Justice (PiS), won with 50.89 percent of the vote, compared to 49.11 percent for the progressive mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski.
Following the result, many questions arise about what will happen next, for instance, whether this could signal a future conservative shift in Poland. To investigate this argument, we conducted an interview with Olivier Bault.
Karol Nawrocki won by a narrow margin. What do you think were the factors that led to his victory?
First, I would add that Nawrocki won despite the election being free but unfair. The party that supported his candidacy, the center-right Law and Justice (PiS), was deprived of the state subsidies to which it is entitled, according to the law and a Supreme Court ruling, for the entire duration of the campaign. This was the result of a decision by the government, which supported the candidacy of Warsaw’s mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, who is also vice-president of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-left Civic Platform party. So, we had a situation where the party supporting Trzaskowski received millions of zlotys in public funds, as per the law, while the party supporting his main competitor was unlawfully deprived of those funds.
So, why did Nawrocki win?
Donald Tusk’s government is not very popular in Poland, and Trzaskowski was the government’s candidate.
Second, Trzaskowski is one of the most left-wing politicians in the Civic Platform (PO). Although throughout the campaign leading up to the first round of the election on May 18, he tried to present himself as a conservative and a sovereigntist, most people know he fully supports the LGBT, gender, and woke agenda, as well as the European Green Deal and a welcoming policy toward illegal immigrants. For those who may not recall, the Ordo Iuris Institute ran a campaign exposing Trzaskowski’s true convictions based on his earlier declarations and decisions as mayor of Warsaw. Citizens have the right to vote for whomever they choose, but they should also be informed about whom they are voting for—and our role, as a think tank, is to inform.
Third, Poland remains a rather conservative society, with a large proportion of Catholics, and Karol Nawrocki did not need to pretend to be a conservative and sovereigntist—he has always been one. As such, his declared convictions are more in line with those of the majority of Poles.
Fourth, he was supported by all other candidates on the Right between the two rounds of the presidential election. This was partly because he is not a member of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and has an ideological profile also compatible with the Confederation, an alliance of Christian nationalists and conservative libertarians, and partly because his opponent is so radically leftist.
Poland, Ipsos:
Presidential election, second round today
Trzaskowski (PO-EPP): 50.3% (+1.3)
Nawrocki (PiS-ECR): 49.7% (-1.3)+/- vs. Last election results
➤ https://t.co/WMMN58m6v6 pic.twitter.com/k4EKScacz4
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) June 1, 2025
Do you think the current government’s management had anything to do with his defeat? If so, what were the main mistakes that led to Trzaskowski’s defeat?
As I said, the Tusk government has managed to become quite unpopular in a short time, not least because it has failed to deliver on its promises and has instead focused on repressing its main opposition party by employing the tools of “militant democracy.” This is how Donald Tusk himself described it to justify why his government has been violating the law and the Constitution with Brussels’ support, allegedly to ‘restore the rule of law’ after eight years of (moderately) conservative rule.
One major mistake Donald Tusk made was joining Trzaskowski’s campaign after the first round of the election to personally attack Karol Nawrocki based on accusations made by the German-owned Onet website regarding Nawrocki’s past—accusations that lacked plausible evidence and credible sources.
This entire smear campaign seems to have backfired when it reached the point of convincing many voters that the government was using the secret services against Trzaskowski’s main opponent, Karol Nawrocki. There was even an attempt by NASK, the main public authority responsible for monitoring online disinformation, to make people believe that the Russians were interfering in the campaign by running ads against Trzaskowski on social media. But it quickly emerged that the said campaign was actually targeting Nawrocki and Mentzen, the Confederation’s candidate, and that it had been run by individuals associated with Tusk’s and Trzaskowski’s party, using foreign funds, including from the American Left. This, too, backfired.
Additionally, the role played by public television in supporting Trzaskowski was glaringly obvious, especially in the organization of candidate debates, and this also backfired.
Presidential Election in Poland in 2025 Source: x.com/josh met calf
To what extent did the election campaigns of both candidates reflect the main social or cultural divisions present in Polish society today?
Polish society is indeed divided between Euro-enthusiastic progressives and sovereigntist conservatives, and Rafal Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki embodied this divide.
Karol Nawrocki pledged to veto any legislation that would liberalize abortion in Poland, while Rafal Trzaskowski promised the opposite. Nawrocki declared that he would oppose same-sex partnerships and any attempt to limit freedom of expression under the pretext of combating “hate speech,” whereas Trzaskowski supports both. Nawrocki vowed to do everything within his limited presidential powers to block the implementation of the EU’s Green Deal and Migration Pact, while Trzaskowski—though he claimed during the campaign that the EU had abandoned the Green Deal and that the Migration Pact would not apply to Poland—is known to support both, and his claims were demonstrably false.
What implications will it have for Donald Tusk’s government that a PiS president with veto power is in power?
Donald Tusk had said that he would use the tools of “militant democracy” until the spring of this year and then return to a more normal style of governing.
In other words, President Trzaskowski was expected to sign off on various laws aimed at retroactively legitimizing actions taken unlawfully so far—such as the takeover of public media, the prosecution service, and the judiciary.
Tusk and his justice minister, Adam Bodnar, also planned to push through reforms of the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court, and the National Council of the Judiciary that would allow them to remove all judges appointed during the previous two PiS parliamentary terms. Last September, they presented a draft bill proposing to vet all Polish judges appointed or promoted since the judicial reforms of the PiS majority. This affects around a third of all Polish judges, who, under the Constitution, are in principle irrevocable, but whose status is now being contested by the current left-liberal coalition, which labels them “neo-judges.”
Now, Donald Tusk’s government will no longer be able to implement these plans. Political leaders responsible for breaching the law and the Constitution in the name of “militant democracy” or “transitional justice,” as Justice Minister Bodnar has also called his modus operandi, may one day face trial for attempting a coup against democratic institutions. If proven, they could face prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. This is also a potential consequence of having a conservative president with veto power.
How has the new president’s ideological profile been interpreted inside and outside Poland, especially in relation to issues such as the role of the EU, historical memory, and national sovereignty?
Nawrocki was clearly not Brussels’ candidate, and many in Poland feared a repeat of what happened in Romania. Several factors likely prevented this, including the open support shown for Nawrocki by the Trump administration, which probably explains why Ursula von der Leyen quickly acknowledged Nawrocki’s victory. This sent a clear signal to Donald Tusk and his coalition that any attempt to invalidate the result would not receive international support. It is also worth noting that the Tusk-led coalition had questioned the legitimacy of the Supreme Court chamber responsible for validating elections, as if keeping open the possibility of contesting a victory by the opposition.
From the EU’s perspective, the crucial point is that Nawrocki promised to veto any measure transferring more national sovereignty to Brussels.
This means that the very deep reform of the EU treaties approved by the European Parliament in November 2023—with 267 proposed amendments, backed by Paris and Berlin—will now most likely be blocked by Poland.
Furthermore, if Nawrocki’s victory leads to an electoral win for Law and Justice and the Confederation in the next parliamentary elections (scheduled for 2027, or possibly earlier), and to the formation of a governing coalition between them, it would mark a sharp turn toward a right-wing, conservative, pro-sovereignty agenda in Polish politics.
Finally, do you think that this victory for the PiS candidate could be a step towards Law and Justice regaining power in the next legislative elections? And if so, do you think that Konfederacja could be key to this happening with a possible coalition government?
Most opinion polls have for many months shown that new parliamentary elections would likely result in an absolute majority for a potential coalition of Law and Justice and the Confederation, but not for Law and Justice alone.
President-elect Nawrocki has already shown he could play a central role in preparing the country for such a coalition.
Though he was Law and Justice’s presidential candidate, he is not a party member and is in fact new to politics, and he ultimately won thanks to voters who usually support both Law and Justice and the Confederation—giving him strong legitimacy in this regard.
The radicalism of Donald Tusk’s left-liberal coalition, along with its efforts to entrench its power with Brussels’ support—both political and financial—by undemocratic means, is also a factor that could encourage Law and Justice and the Confederation to work together. This is especially the case as mass immigration, radical green policies, and Brussels’ increasingly ideological and centralizing approach are seen as growing threats to Poland’s sovereignty and the well-being of its citizens.
