Briefly: Polish Elections

Today and tomorrow will be busy days, other duties. However, …

While most attention was focused on the Romanian elections, Poland also held presidential elections on Sunday. There will, of course, be a runoff between the top two finishers. However, the results in the first round do not bode well for the Euro establishment—in Poland that is led by PM Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform, which holds a majority coalition in parliament (the Sejm).

American political categories don’t translate well to other countries, although something akin to the American Red/Blue divide can be seen. Virtually all Polish parties have been strongly supportive of war on Russia—although public opinion is no longer as supportive as in the past. The exception to that among the presidential candidates in the first round was Grzegosz Braun, who surprised with a 4th place finish, at 6.34%.

The current president, Andrzej Duda, belongs to the Law and Justice party (PiS). PiS is generally characterized as “populist” and “sovereigntist”, meaning that it is strongly nationalist and opposed to surrendering Polish sovereignty to the EU—including control over social issues. The current PiS presidential candidate, Karol Nawrocki, ran on a pretty typical PiS platform—which is anathema to the EU:

Socially, Nawrocki stresses his commitment to Polish patriotism, Christian values and national sovereignty, and has declared the need to defend traditional social values.

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Nawrocki opposes the federalisation of the European Union and stresses the need to maintain Polish national identity within the European Union, adding that "Poland does not need a centralised state populated by EU citizens of Polish origin".

He has previously denounced attempts to downplay the 1943–1945 massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia for the sake of improving Polish-Ukrainian relations. Nawrocki is opposed to Ukrainian membership in NATO or the European Union until Ukraine accepts responsibility for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia.

He supports ending the Russo-Ukrainian War by a peace agreement, but argues that the issue of territorial cessions should be decided by the European community as well as Ukraine itself. He demands World War II reparations from Germany to Poland, and states that they are needed for Germany to prove that it has peaceful intentions towards Poland. He also strongly opposes the Russian Federation and has stated that "Russia is imperialist in its foundation whether it is white terror, red terror or modern terror."

The results left the radical EU liberals in first place. However, the opposition parties all finished more strongly than polls predicted—which means, as strongly as feared. If the opposition parties who finished 2nd - 4th can agree on some form of coalition, they will have an easy majority. They may even draw votes from the 5th place finisher.

Poland goes to the polls

Results in the first round of Poland's presidential election. Trzaskowski and Nawrocki qualified for the second round of the election, a runoff to be held on June 1.

Rafał Trzaskowski | Civic Platform

31.4%

Karol Nawrocki | Law and Justice

29.5%

Sławomir Mentzen | Confederation

14.8%

Grzegorz Braun | The Crown

6.3%

Szymon Hołownia | Poland 2050

5.0%

Adrian Zandberg | Together

4.9%

Magdalena Biejat | The Left

4.2%

Source: National Electoral Commission

A defeat of the Civic Platform candidate would be a major blow to the EU project—given that Poland is far larger and more influential than any of the other breakaway countries—including Romania, which was kept in the EU fold by strong arm “legal” means. This is another sign of the political and social fracturing of Europe in the wake of the disastrous war on Russia.