Conservative Karol Nawrocki wins the presidential elections of Poland: NPR

Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian who is supported by the right-wing rights and justice party, focuses supporters at his head office after the drainage of the presidential election in Warsaw, Poland on Sunday.

Czarek Sokolowski/AP

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Czarek Sokolowski/AP

Warsaw, Poland – Conservative Karol Nawrocki won Poland’s weekend presidential runoff elections, according to the final voice on Monday. Nawrocki won 50.89% of the votes in a very tight race against Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%.

The narrow race had kept on the country since a first round two weeks earlier and all night until Monday, so that deep division in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union was unveiled.

An early exit poll that was released on Sunday evening, suggested that Trzaskowski was on his way to victory before updated polling started to reverse the image hours later.

The result indicates that Poland can be expected to take a more nationalist path among his new leader, who was supported by US President Donald Trump.

The role of a president in Poland

Most daily power in the Polish political system rests with a prime minister elected by parliament. However, the role of the president is not only ceremonial. The office has the authority to influence foreign policy and a veto legislation too veto.

Nawrocki will follow Andrzej Duda, a conservative whose second and last term ends on 6 August.

Headache for tusk

Prime Minister Donald Tusk came to power at the end of a coalition government at the end of 2023 that includes a broad ideological gap – so broad that it was unable to fulfill certain of Tusk’s election promises, such as the release of the restrictive abortion law.

But Duda’s veto force has been another obstacle. It has prevented Tusk from fulfilling promises to reverse laws that the legal system has politized in a way that the European Union declared as undemocratic.

Now it seems that Tusk will have no way to keep those promises that he had made to both voters and the EU.

A former boxer, historian and political beginner

Nawrocki, a 42-year-old historian, was tapped by the Law and Justice Party as part of her urge to a new start.

The party ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, when it lost power to a central coalition led by Tusk. Some political observers predicted that the party would never make a comeback, and Nawrocki was chosen as a new face that would not be burned by the scandals of the eight years of the party.

Nawrocki has recently been the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, which embraces nationalist historical stories. He led the efforts to overthrow monuments to the Soviet Red Army in Poland, and Russia responded by putting him on a desired list, according to Polish media reports.

The supporters of Nawrocki describe him as the embodiment of traditional, patriotic values. Those who resist secular trends, including LGBTQ+ visibility, have embraced him and consider him a reflection of the traditional values ​​with which they grew up.

The Trump factor

Trump made it clear that he wanted Nawrocki as President of Poland.

The conservative group CPAC held its first meeting in Poland last week to give Nawrocki a boost. Kristi Take, the American Minister of Interior Security and a prominent Trump union, praised Namrocki strongly and insisted on Poland to vote for him.

The US has stationed around 10,000 troops in Poland and called suggests that military ties with Nawrocki could deepen as president.

A common chorus of the supporters of Nawrocki is that he will restore ‘normality’ as they believe that Trump has done. American flags often appeared at the meetings of Nawrocki and his supporters believed that he offered a better chance for good ties with the Trump government.