Pro-EU candidate narrowly ahead in Poland’s first round presidential vote

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Rafał Trzaskowski was projected to narrowly top the first round of Poland’s presidential election on Sunday, putting the pro-EU candidate in a run-off with a rightwing rival that could unlock Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s reform agenda. 

Exit polls suggest Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and candidate for Tusk’s ruling Civic Platform party, was set to secure 30.8 per cent of votes, ahead of opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki with 29.1 per cent.

The exit poll was much tighter than anticipated and would mark a significant blow to the liberal Trzaskowski, who had topped the polls throughout the campaign and held a 5 point lead over Nawrocki until Sunday. The two would qualify for a second-round vote on June 1.

“I am very happy that I won the first round, but there is a lot of work ahead of us,” Trzaskowski said after the exit poll’s release.

Nawrocki, a historian and political outsider, was handpicked by Jarosław Kaczyński, the founder of the ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) party and Tusk’s long-standing nemesis.

Tusk is counting on a Trzaskowski victory in June to unblock reforms that have been put on hold by outgoing president Andrzej Duda, another PiS nominee.

It could also solidify Poland’s position as a liberal and pro-EU counterweight in the region. Warsaw leads defence spending within Nato and Tusk has recently helped drive EU efforts to bolster the bloc’s military resources against Russia and the possible removal of US security guarantees by President Donald Trump.

But Nawrocki could be helped in the run-off by voters who backed far-right candidate Sławomir Mentzen, who was in third place with 15.4 per cent of the votes, according to the Ipsos exit poll released by the main Polish television channels.

Kaczyński chose Nawrocki in order to broaden the PiS electorate and reprise the 2015 dark horse victory of Duda, then a relatively unknown lawyer who managed to unseat an incumbent president and Tusk ally.

Power in Poland is mostly in the hands of the prime minister and parliament.

In an election bereft of major policy debates, Trzaskowski and Nawrocki both put Poland’s security at the top of their agendas.

Nawrocki claimed he was better positioned to secure Washington’s continued military support and he shook hands with Trump in the White House earlier this month. But the PiS candidate did not get the clear support that Trump’s camp provided in other recent elections, notably to far-right politicians in Germany. 

Trzaskowski faces the challenge of mobilising progressive voters for the second round, particularly among women who were instrumental in Tusk’s 2023 parliamentary election victory, when turnout reached a record 74 per cent. Some of these voters have voiced frustration over the government’s failure to overturn a near-total abortion ban imposed by the previous PiS administration, amid internal disagreements within Tusk’s coalition.

In the run-up to Sunday’s election, Tusk also sought to present Nawrocki as a pro-Russia candidate since his PiS party has also backed George Simion, the ultranationalist presidential candidate in Romania. After Simion attended a recent Nawrocki campaign rally in Poland, Tusk said that “Russia rejoices”.