By Liberal candidate and current mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski, beat conservative Karol Nawrocki in the first round of this year’s Polish presidential elections after a 69.71 percent turnout.
The liberal candidate, backed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, won 31.36 percent of support in Sunday’s presidential election, while conservative challenger Karol Nawrocki, backed by the conservative opposition, took 29.54 percent of the vote.
The results of two other candidates, Slawomir Mentzen of the paleolibertarian Confederation 14.81 percent and the anti-system Gregorz Braun, who won 6.34 percent, attest to the rise of alternative proposals.
For this reason, The Long Brief has decided to interview Álvaro Peñas to analyze the Polish elections. Peñas is a writer for The Euopean Conservative, La Voce del Patriota, Deliberatio and Disidentia. He is an international analyst, specialising in Eastern Europe.
Most polls give the win to Trzaskowski, the candidate of the current government. Do you think the tables will be turned as they were in Romania, where the favorite did not win in the end?
The first round of the presidential elections in Poland has produced a significant result. The liberal candidate Trzaskowski came first, but only two points ahead of Nawrocki. Some time ago, according to the polls, such a close runoff was not expected. The effect of Nawrocki, whom I consider the best candidate that Law and Justice could have chosen, could be felt.
Moreover, if we add up the votes – although it is not that simple in politics – of the voters who supported the Confederation, we see that practically 50 percent of the votes to the right of Trzaskowski are reached. Therefore, the final result will be very close, as it happened in previous elections in which Duda won. We should not be surprised by an eventual victory of Nawrocki, as the differences are not so big.
And this situation has nothing to do with Romania, where Simon obtained a very high result in the first round, but then all the others united against him.
In Poland, the situation is different. Nawrocki could receive votes from other voters who chose different candidates in the first round.
Have Konfederacja made a statement on who they support?
The Confederation has not officially endorsed either candidate. What they did do was to meet with both of them, and hold a kind of debate in which they confronted their ideas. Logically, they have many more points in common with the candidate of Law and Justice. Even so, there have been many accusations: from Law and Justice (PiS), the Confederation is blamed for not explicitly supporting Nawrocki; while the Confederation blames Law and Justice for the situation.
After his meeting with Trzaskowski, Slawomir Mentzen (from the Confederation) went out with him for a beer and declared that this is normal in a democracy: that people with different ideas can share a moment. However, this gesture did not sit well in the Law and Justice environment.
Therefore, there is no clear support from the Confederation, and there is an obvious fight between parties.
We will have to see what the voters decide in the second round, although it seems that the Confederation voter shares more points in common with the candidate of Law and Justice than with the liberal.
Poland has always been a great ally of Ukraine, whoever wins, they will continue to support the country led by Zelensky in the same way?
As for Ukraine, for geostrategic rather than political reasons, Poland has always been an ally of its neighbor and has defended its territorial integrity.
For Poland, Russia represents an existential threat. Therefore, the position of support for Ukraine will not change, regardless of who wins the elections.
The only difference between the candidates has been that Trzaskowski has stated that he would support Ukraine’s NATO membership, while Nawrocki has said that he is not in favor of NATO membership or sending troops, as the national priority is to defend the borders with Belarus.
Trzaskowski’s seems to be a political strategy: to present himself as “the most pro-Ukraine” and thus insinuate that if the opponent does not say the same, he is pro-Russian or pro-Putin.
Trzaskowski knows perfectly well that the decision on Ukraine’s entry into NATO is not up to him, but requires consensus among the member countries, and today such a consensus does not exist.
There is an effort, especially from the left, to monopolize the pro-Ukrainian discourse, as if only they have supported Ukraine, and any conservative automatically becomes pro-Russian.
It is a dirty strategy, which we have also seen in Romania, where Simion advocated strengthening NATO, but the next day his opponents and the media accused him of being against it.
In the case of Nawrocki, to accuse him of being a pro-Russian is an insult to intelligence: he was responsible for the removal of many Red Army monuments in Poland, which has earned him death threats. He currently has a permit to carry weapons for his own safety.
What would a victory of Nawrocki mean?
A Nawrocki victory would be a setback for Donald Tusk, whose reforms have run up against the wall represented by Duda, the current president, also of Law and Justice. If Nawrocki wins, this counterweight to Tusk’s policies – and his alignment with Agenda 2030 – will continue.
Moreover, it would be an important reinforcement for the conservatives after the setback suffered in the legislative elections. All this, taking into account that Tusk has undertaken a very tough policy against PiS: cutting state funding, persecution of MPs, media closure and so on.
If Tusk’s candidate wins, this agenda of “harassment and demolition” of PiS will continue, just as the influence of Brussels will impose itself more strongly.
Do you think that if Nawrocki loses, it could mean that the new conservative right, which was and is experiencing a growing phenomenon, should consider a different strategy?
Each country is different, although there are similarities. In Poland, one of the main criticisms of PiS after the legislative elections was that it was perceived as an old party, with no young figures or relevant women. But this does not mean that young people do not vote for the right; in fact, many young people voted for Confederation. With Nawrocki, however, they have chosen a candidate with the ability to connect with young people as well, and that changes the party’s image.
If he does not win, Law and Justice should consider renewing its image and attract a younger audience. But, in general, what happened in Poland and Romania are particular cases. The key for the right is to keep working, even harder than before. Looking back five years, you can see how far the conservative right has come.
And finally, it is essential not to forget the cultural battle. Events like CPAC, both in Poland and Budapest, are very important.
If Trzaskowski wins in the end, then, could we affirm that the “Europeanism” embodied by Macron and now with Nicusor Dan in Romania, would live a resurgence? Or would it be just a fleeting moment due to the Russian threat?
Trzaskowski’s victory would be sold as “democracy has won”. In every election, it seems that we live in a state of urgency to “save democracy”, when, in reality, it is simply a matter of electing a politician with one ideology or another.
Logically, if Trzaskowski wins, it will be a great reinforcement for Macron and his vision of “Europeanism”.
Poland is an increasingly relevant country and has been a bastion of conservative and Catholic ideas. We will have to see how far the manipulation can go. For example, Mateusz Morawiecki, the former prime minister, proposed a plan to help Ukraine. Macron then responded that it made no sense to help a country that was going to disappear in two weeks. Now, however, from the institutions and the pro-government media, Macron is presented as a great defender of Ukraine and Morawiecki as almost pro-Russian. The manipulation is obvious.
In short, if Trzaskowski wins, it will be a great boost for Macron and this “Europeanism” based on false premises and manipulation strategies, so it is also understandable his interest in censoring social networks and controlling the media.
