Poland was a poster child for the liberal fightback. Not anymore

A political newcomer aligned with the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) won Poland’s presidential election on Sunday. Historian Karol Nawrocki defeated the early favourite, Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, in a result that stunned the country’s political establishment.

So what? Poland became an international poster child for liberals fighting back against populists in late 2023, when Donald Tusk led a broad coalition to victory over Jarosław Kaczyński’s PiS. The pendulum already seems to be swinging back the other way, with Tusk’s candidate losing to a former football hooligan with a chequered past. This matters for Europe because:

• Euroscepticism will occupy another redoubt, as a right-wing illiberal even more strongly opposed to the EU establishment than outgoing Andrzej Duda (also aligned with PiS) takes Poland’s presidency. Though the president has limited power in foreign policy, Nawrocki will loudly join Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, and others attacking the EU on migration, the green energy transition and culture war issues.
• Ukraine will face further challenges in relations with Poland – its key neighbour and transit hub for military supplies and trade. Without being explicitly pro-Russian, Nawrocki has adopted many anti-Ukrainian slogans of Poland’s far right. He has opposed Ukraine joining Nato or the EU and questioned the rights of Ukrainian migrants in Poland. That said, Nawrocki will remain strongly committed to the Nato alliance as Poland’s crucial security guarantee.
• Trump will retain a Polish presidential admirer and ally in the heart of Europe. Like his predecessor Duda, Nawrocki will court favour with the US president and seek his support for PiS in Poland’s domestic political conflicts. In return, Nawrocki will play his part in the transnational network of the illiberal, “anti-globalist” right.

How did this happen? The runoff was very close – 51 per cent to 49 per cent – and could have gone either way. But the result appears above all to be a proxy vote against the Tusk government in a virtual ‘mid-term’ plebiscite.

Too little and too much. Supporters of the government have been disappointed by a lack of progress on key promises such as liberalisation of the abortion law; opponents claim Tusk’s party has sought to monopolise Poland’s institutions in an undemocratic way.

What will change. The president is largely a ceremonial figure with only a few significant powers. Nawrocki won’t be able to alter Poland’s course on relations with the EU or Ukraine, as these areas remain under the control of the Tusk government.

But he can veto domestic legislation, which will allow him to block the government’s reform agenda – particularly in rule of law and the judiciary – as Duda already has.

What this means for Tusk. This defeat is a major blow to the prime minister and his government. Symbolically, Tusk has lost another showdown with his arch-nemesis Kaczyński. Practically, without a friendly president, the liberal government’s sphere of action will remain severely limited. This will also test the unity of a fractious coalition and increase the possibility of PiS returning to power in the 2027 parliamentary elections.

Sounds familiar. Poland is among the most politically polarised countries in the world, and some of the divisions are well-established. Poland’s globally connected cities voted heavily for the liberal Trzaskowski; villages and small towns backed the traditionalist Nawrocki. Trzaskowski had support among progressives and university-educated voters; Nawrocki dominated among religious and less-educated voters.

New trends. Most notably there was also a turn of Poland’s youngest voters to anti-establishment options on both the far-right and the left. Nawrocki picked up much of the far-right vote in the run-off, performing well among these younger voters.

Wait and see… It’s too early to speak of a decisive turn in Poland. The country is still split down the middle between broadly liberal-left and right-wing tents. Small shifts among swing voters can give one side or the other political ascendancy for a time. But Sunday’s result shows that Poland’s illiberal wave is far from over.

Photograph by Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty