Presidential election | Poland: Election winner Nawrocki scores with striking patriotism

"Patriotic Poland has won." This was the triumphant declaration of Karol Nawrocki, the candidate of the national-conservative opposition, on election night. Nawrocki will be the future head of state of a country in which the presidential election once again confirmed the sharp division into two political halves. But the scales ultimately tipped to the right. Nawrocki won 50.9 percent of the votes cast, while Rafał Trzaskowski, the government candidate, received 49.1 percent. Both candidates each received over ten million votes, with a whopping 360,000 votes making the difference. The political color in the presidential palace remains unchanged, but the underlying nationalist tone is once again intensified.

Nawrocki was chosen by party leader Jarosław Kaczyński as the right-wing populist PiS candidate for the presidential election, which surprised even his own camp, as the historian, who holds a doctorate in history with a thesis on anti-communist resistance in the People's Republic of Poland, has little political experience. The 42-year-old had climbed the career ladder in the field of history politics, so important to Kaczyński's political movement. From 2017 to 2021, he was director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, and in May 2021, he was elected by the Sejm as director of the state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). During the post-2015 government of the national conservatives, the IPN assumed paramount importance for the reinterpretation of the recent past, with its two main pillars being the German and Soviet occupation during World War II and the period of the People's Republic of Poland.

Kaczyński's decision to put Nawrocki in the race against Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski is certainly evidence of the great political weight attached to the strictly anti-communist approach to Poland's contemporary history. On top of that, he had found a candidate who didn't even need to be taught a critical view of Germany. It was no coincidence, then, that the "German card" was played in the election campaign. According to the absurd claim, Trzaskowski, in alliance with Prime Minister Donald Tusk, played into German interests and let Polish ones down. Anyone who overdoes it with the EU blue, anyone who carelessly wants to further erode national sovereignty rights in favor of Brussels, is simply acting in Berlin's interest! Or to put it another way: Trzaskowski likes to present himself as an ardent supporter of the blue EU flag; the Polish white and red does not suit him at all; it is both presumptuous and insulting to wear it.

“Patriotic Poland has won.”

Karol Nawrocki, Poland's future president

The future role that Nawrocki will now play was already laid out in the election campaign. The phrase "wanting to be a president for all Poles," that is, to at least suggest that the interests of the losing half will also be adequately considered, is unlikely to pass Nawrocki's lips. He sees himself as the representative of "patriotic Poland," and it has won. The first task will be to parry the "anti-patriotic" attacks of the opposing side—that is, the government's legislative proposals passed with a parliamentary majority. The presidential veto is a sharp sword, a downright curse in Poland's political system when wielded unilaterally for partisan reasons. Former President Aleksander Kwaśniewski had recommended to the candidates, based on his own experience, that in the event of victory, they also consider the losing side when filling the presidential post, in order to build bridges across the ever-deepening dividing line.

The Kaczyński camp is now focusing on the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for autumn 2027. They expect a governing coalition that will be worn down in a "war of position" against the presidential palace, and could even collapse sooner. Although Prime Minister Tusk declared that the coalition government would hold together, Trzaskowski's defeat is a bitter setback. In the parliamentary elections in autumn 2023, the young voters (up to 39 years old) had ensured the victory of the democratic opposition camp united against the national-conservative government. Now, Nawrocki had the edge in this important electoral sector, with blatant "patriotism" triumphing over the promise to put right those things that are central to the emancipatory development of society. From the perspective of the women's protests of autumn 2020, the election outcome is a development that is almost unimaginable, but one that likely has a lot to do with the government's work since autumn 2023. And with a changed political climate – with Trump, with the increasingly loud voices against Ukraine, with the weakening cohesiveness of the crisis-ridden EU.

The major cities voted for Trzaskowski, while the north and west of the country remain predominantly liberal. Conversely, the east and southeast remain proud strongholds of the national conservatives, as always, and over 80 percent of farmers voted for Nawrocki. Not much has changed in the structures and disparities that have been familiar for two decades—but the election outcome will have serious consequences.