Politics Large demos to mobilize Poles ahead of presidential election

SDA

25.5.2025 - 04:55

National conservative presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki speaks to the media after a televised debate. Photo: Czarek Sokolowski/AP/dpa
National conservative presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki speaks to the media after a televised debate. Photo: Czarek Sokolowski/AP/dpa
Keystone

One week before the run-off election for the presidency in Poland, both candidates are focusing on a public trial of strength. Who will bring the most people onto the streets in Warsaw today? Liberal candidate Rafal Trzaskowski has called for a "March of Patriots". At the same time, his rival Karol Nawrocki from the national-conservative PiS party is calling for a "March for Poland".

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The rallies are intended to motivate their own supporters - and impress those who are undecided. At least that is the hope of both camps, because according to the polls, it's touch and go: both Trzaskowski and Nawrocki can expect 47% of the vote in next Sunday's election.

Election result also important for Germany

The result of the election will have a decisive impact on Poland's future course - with implications for Germany and Europe. Since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the EU and NATO member state Poland has gained in political weight. This was recently demonstrated by the trip to Kiev by Prime Minister Donald Tusk together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Tusk needs his candidate Trzaskowski to win in order to implement his reform policy and restore the rule of law, which has been demolished by the PiS. The previous president Andrzej Duda, who comes from the ranks of the PiS, has blocked most of the bills proposed by Tusk's government with his veto power. If Nawrocki becomes the new head of state, he is likely to continue this blockade policy. Tusk's center-left alliance does not have the necessary two-thirds majority in parliament to override the president's veto.

Courting far-right voters

And Nawrocki is looking sharply to the right. Because that is where the 42-year-old PiS candidate can win over the most voters. The first round of voting revealed a shockingly high level of support for two far-right candidates. The 38-year-old entrepreneur Slawomir Mentzen, who scored points with a MAGA-like program ("Make America Great Again" was the campaign slogan of US President Donald Trump), especially among young men, received almost 15 percent of the vote. The anti-Semite Grzegorz Braun landed more than six percent.

Both dropped out of the race. But Mentzen now wants to tip the scales. He has invited Nawrocki and Trzaskowski individually to his YouTube show and presented them with his eight-point plan for them to sign. He made his election recommendation dependent on this.

For an hour, viewers witnessed how 42-year-old Nawrocki, who holds a doctorate in history, blatantly chummed up Mentzen, constantly addressing him as "Herr Doktor" and criticizing the Christian Social aspects of PiS policy from the right at his behest. "The gentlemen were almost eating out of each other's beaks", wrote the magazine "Polityka".

In the end, Nawrocki signed Mentzen's eight-point plan. In it, he undertakes, among other things, not to sign any law ratifying Ukraine's accession to NATO, to defend the national currency, the zloty, and not to hand over any powers of the Polish government to Brussels.

Trzaskowski does not want to sign the eight-point plan

The right-wing extremist Mentzen had more work to do with his guest Trzaskowski. The 54-year-old mayor of Warsaw, who also has experience in the European Parliament and as a minister, demonstrated his foreign and European policy expertise and took Mentzen's arguments apart. In the end, he refused to sign Mentzen's eight-point plan.

It was out of the question for him to write off the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, said Trzaskowski: "Putin only understands the language of strength. If Ukraine does not receive security guarantees, we will be next in line." Trzaskowski will now probably have to do without the support of the majority of Mentzen's voters in the run-off election.