By Jacob Burg
Conservative historian Karol Nawrocki has been officially declared the winner of Poland’s presidential runoff election after the state electoral commission finalized the tally early on June 2.
Nawrocki, who was approached to run by Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party, won 50.89 percent of the vote in a tight race against Warsaw mayor and Pro-EU candidate Rafal Trzaskowski, who won 49.11 percent support—separated by a margin of 369,591 votes.
Citizens of Poland headed to the polls on June 1 for a presidential runoff election to determine the nation’s political path forward and future relationship with the European Union, with the Law and Justice Party voicing support for pursuing a more nationalist governing approach.
Because conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda is finishing his second and final term, Poland’s new president will have sway over the centrist government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and will determine whether it can fully pursue its agenda, as the president has the power to veto laws.
The June 1 runoff vote comes after a hotly contested first round on May 18. At the time, Trzaskowski led with a little more than 31 percent of the vote to Nawrocki’s nearly 30 percent. Eleven other candidates were eliminated.
The two candidates had contrasting views on governing policies. Trzaskowski, 53, vowed to prioritize judicial independence, reduce abortion restrictions, and promote alliances with the rest of Europe. Nawrocki, 42, promised to pursue traditional Polish values. He remains skeptical of the EU and supportive of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Nawrocki is a newcomer to politics, having no previous party membership before the Law and Justice Party approached him in an attempt to reenergize the organization after losing power in 2023 to a group led by Tusk.
He is currently the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates crimes committed by the Nazi and communist regimes. Nawrocki supports tightened border controls and increasing defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product. He is also against liberalizing abortion access and LGBT values. His slogan is “Poland first, Poles first.”
As the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Trzaskowski is a close Tusk ally and a member of his ruling coalition. This is his second run for president, after losing to Duda in 2020.
While both candidates support aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia over growing security concerns, Nawrocki does not support NATO membership for Ukraine. Trzaskowski is in favor of future NATO membership for Ukraine.
Nawrocki centered his campaign on pursuing traditional Christian values. His supporters believe that Trzaskowski, an EU backer, would relinquish control of critical Polish affairs to other European nations such as Germany and France.
Trump threw his support behind Nawrocki, inviting him to the White House in early May. He sent U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to a Conservative Political Action Conference in Poland to give a resounding endorsement of the conservative candidate.
Noem suggested that if Nawrocki won, there might be stronger U.S.–Polish military ties in the future. She said that a Trzaskowski win could threaten Poland’s security.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also endorsed Nawrocki at a Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Budapest, Hungary, on May 29.
Poland is a strategically critical partner of NATO and the EU, particularly because it borders war-torn Ukraine.
What Does Nawrocki’s Victory Mean for Poland?
Szabolcs Janik, senior researcher at the Centre for Political Science of Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, told The Epoch Times that Nawrocki’s win was emblematic of the heavy political polarization of Polish society.
He described the conservative’s victory as a defeat “both symbolically and practically” for Tusk’s pro-EU coalition.
“Nawrocki will most likely act as a brake to the Civic Coalition government’s reform efforts, particularly those promised to be made to the country’s judiciary system [something the conservative candidate already indicated in the campaign]. As a result, the cabinet will be forced to continue the practice of ‘creative governance’, which will be very challenging for the coalition,” he said.
Another domestic consequence of the victory, according to Janik, is the “resurrection” of the opposition Law and Justice Party and the stabilization of the position of the party’s leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Regarding the impact of the result on Warsaw’s foreign policy, Janik said that though the role of president is more symbolic in this sphere, Nawrocki is nevertheless free to pursue his own agenda, which he expects to differ from that of the Cabinet.
“Specifically, we can expect an appreciation of transatlantic relations, partly fueled by Nawrocki’s common ideological ground with Donald Trump,” he said.
In Europe, Janik said Nawrocki would not shy away from criticizing the European Union on issues such as migration and other topics relating to national sovereignty, saying his win “can be interpreted as a symbolic success of the right-wing sovereignist camp in Europe, as already praised by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.”
Guy Birchall and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
