Karol Nawrocki’s victory within the 2025 Polish presidential election has shattered the optimism of liberal and pro-EU voters in Poland, writes Adam Holesch.
Amid rising tensions over Europe’s future trajectory, the current elections in Poland and Romania each sharply juxtaposed liberal, pro-European visions with national-conservative and far-right Euroscepticism. In each contests, the mayors of the respective capitals emerged within the second spherical as standard-bearers for democratic and European values.
Opposing them had been candidates who mobilised highly effective populist narratives, framing the election as a conflict between “we, the individuals” and “them, the institution”. But whereas each races had been influenced by this polarised narrative, the outcomes diverged considerably. This divergence has profound implications, particularly in Poland, the place hopes of democratic renewal after 2023 now face severe challenges.
Continuation moderately than rupture?
As with many previous elections, the 2025 Polish presidential contest is finest understood throughout the context of the two-decade rivalry between Prime Minister Donald Tusk, co-founder of Civic Platform (PO), and Jarosław Kaczyński, co-founder of Regulation and Justice (PiS).
Since 2005, largely working from the PiS celebration headquarters, Kaczyński has polarised Polish society, remodeling elections into private and ideological battles towards Tusk. This rivalry has produced alternating victories in parliamentary elections. Tusk’s Civic Platform triumphed in 2007 and 2011, and fashioned a coalition authorities after the 2023 elections, regardless of PiS successful essentially the most votes. In distinction, PiS secured victories in 2005, 2015 and 2019, suggesting a slight electoral edge.
Nonetheless, presidential elections observe a special sample. PiS secured victories in 2005, 2015 and 2020, whereas Civic Platform solely succeeded in 2010 underneath extraordinary circumstances after the airplane crash that killed then-president Lech Kaczyński, Jarosław’s twin brother.
Thus, the 2025 outcome, the place PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki narrowly defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, seems extra a continuation than a rupture. The result intently mirrors 2020 when PiS-backed incumbent Andrzej Duda equally edged out Trzaskowski. Why, then, has this outcome reignited fears over Poland’s democratic trajectory?
The presidential veto
The reason being that the 2023 parliamentary elections, hailed as a vital democratic renewal, had set excessive expectations throughout Europe. Celebrated by liberals, pro-EU residents and the European Fee, these elections had been the EU’s first vital reversal of democratic backsliding, prompting the conditional launch of beforehand frozen EU funds dependent upon Prime Minister Tusk dismantling PiS-era judicial reforms.
Following this parliamentary shift, the presidency – nonetheless held by PiS-backed Andrzej Duda – remained a major institutional barrier to rule of regulation reforms. Poland’s president holds substantial veto powers, together with casual mechanisms like referring laws to the Constitutional Tribunal for preemptive overview.
Traditionally, when aligned politically, the presidency usually helps the federal government. When opposed, nonetheless, presidents can turn into highly effective veto gamers or threat turning into political “lame geese” if parliament possesses a enough majority to override vetoes.
Tusk’s shift to the correct
To safe victory in 2025, the governing coalition underneath Tusk shifted sharply rightward, stunning European companions. Techniques akin to continued pushbacks on the Belarusian border, suspending asylum rights and adopting a hostile stance towards refugees and migrants entered mainstream Polish politics, surprising even figures like filmmaker Agnieszka Holland. Though justified to the EU as crucial manoeuvres to outflank PiS long-term, these strikes risked alienating Tusk’s base.
On Ukraine, Tusk linked Poland’s help for Kyiv’s EU accession to historic acknowledgments and exhumation of Polish victims from the Volhynia massacres – a stance historically related to the far-right Konfederacja. Moreover, Overseas Minister Radosław Sikorski’s anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and Trzaskowski’s proposal to cut back advantages for unemployed Ukrainian ladies signalled broader rightward shifts. This aligns with populist idea suggesting that adopting far-right positions typically backfires, as voters choose the “unique” supply.
Trzaskowski’s defeat can partly be defined by miscalculations about PiS’s historic benefit in presidential elections and Nawrocki’s profitable populist positioning. In contrast to Romania, the place city liberal mobilisation secured victory, Poland’s demographics – largely rural and small-town – favoured Nawrocki’s “widespread individuals” narrative.
Moreover, re-democratisation and rule of regulation weren’t salient points for voters. Extra urgent was the coalition’s failure to reform Poland’s restrictive abortion regulation, a key pledge hampered internally and publicly blamed on presidential veto threats. This alienated – amongst others – liberal feminine voters instrumental within the 2023 victory.
Penalties of Nawrocki’s win
The instant consequence is a lack of momentum for liberals. Regardless of surviving an early confidence vote, Tusk faces a difficult activity holding collectively a various coalition with out the unifying optimism of 2023. Left-wing coalition companions more and more oppose Tusk’s rightward shift, and polling now favours a potential PiS-led parliamentary majority by 2027, strengthened by Konfederacja’s rise. Nawrocki will possible hinder Tusk’s legislative agenda, whereas Jarosław Kaczyński actively courts coalition MPs to fracture authorities stability.
A second consequence is the intensifying problem of cohabitation, demanding strategic recalibration. President Duda beforehand stalled vital reforms by referring laws to the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal, and he vetoed key measures, together with amendments to the Election Regulation and the invoice disbanding the Russian Affect Fee. Tusk’s authorities, anticipating presidential obstruction, hesitated to introduce contentious laws, notably on abortion, reinforcing perceptions of inertia.
Nawrocki’s presidency and the rule of regulation
Nawrocki, a extra staunchly conservative determine than Duda, may cooperate selectively (as an example on migration and Russia coverage) however will possible resist rule of regulation reforms vigorously. Thus, the technique often called “Transition 2.0”, which relied on future cooperation by a Civic Platform president, now requires elementary reassessment.
Although some reforms had been enacted by the Tusk authorities relating to the Constitutional Tribunal, the Nationwide Court docket Register and judicial disciplinary practices, Justice Minister Adam Bodnar additionally confronted criticism for sluggish reforms and restricted accountability measures. With Nawrocki in energy and the Constitutional Tribunal nonetheless loyal to PiS, the prospects for constitutional decision seem severely constrained.
Nawrocki is predicted to withstand liberal legislative initiatives, together with easing abortion legal guidelines, extending LGBTQI+ protections and broadening hate speech legal guidelines. Regardless of these obstacles, Tusk should proceed with drafting promised laws to keep up credibility and sign dedication to democratic norms, even when solely symbolically.
Prospects and dangers for the long run
Regardless of present setbacks, the cohabitation needn’t sign the top of Poland’s re-democratisation course of. Poland’s political system limits presidential dominance, guaranteeing the Tusk authorities can nonetheless obtain coverage milestones, doubtlessly securing a veto-overriding parliamentary majority by 2027. Nonetheless, vital dangers stay, notably coalition fragility and voter disillusionment.
From a broader European perspective, electoral politics more and more resembles a aggressive match between pro-EU and sovereigntist forces. Whereas Romania resisted far-right advances and the governing coalition within the Netherlands with Geert Wilders’ PVV broke aside, Poland – till not too long ago a beacon of democratic renewal – is struggling to keep up its momentum. The vital query stays: can Tusk recalibrate successfully, or has Poland’s path to democratic renewal stalled indefinitely?
Be aware: This text provides the views of the creator, not the place of EUROPP – European Politics and Coverage or the London Faculty of Economics. Featured picture credit score: canon_photographer / Shutterstock.com
