Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist backed by Poland’s hard-right Law and Justice, or PiS, party, won yesterday’s presidential election by a razor-thin margin, beating out center-left Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. The outcome means that Poland’s leadership will remain bitterly divided, with the president hostile to the ruling centrist Civic Coalition, led by PM Donald Tusk. (New York Times)
Our Take
It is difficult to overstate how serious of a blow this outcome is to Tusk and his agenda. PiS had dominated Polish politics for nearly a decade beginning in 2015, during which time it enacted a hard-right, illiberal agenda that eroded the foundations of the country’s democracy and moved Warsaw steadily away from Brussels. Since Tusk took power following parliamentary elections in 2023, he has sought to undo those shifts while taking a clear pro-European stance.
To be sure, Tusk has made progress in implementing his agenda. But the problem for him was that the president was still backed by PiS. And while the role is largely ceremonial, the president does have the power to veto legislation, and Tusk’s coalition is not large enough to overcome the veto on its own. Securing the presidential palace in this year’s election was seen as key to moving significant aspects of the agenda of Tusk’s Civic Coalition’s forward.