Donald vs. Donald: The final standoff between conservatives and liberals in Poland’s presidential election

RU

On the morning of Jan. 30, police surrounded the Warsaw office of Poland’s conservative TV Republika. They came to arrest Zbigniew Ziobro, the country’s former justice minister and public prosecutor general under the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. Ziobro had missed several meetings of the Sejm committee investigating the PiS government’s illegal wiretapping of its political opponents and allies alike using Israel's Pegasus system.

On the eve of his arrest, the former prosecutor general told reporters that he kept a “rich arsenal of firearms” at home. The police visited both of his apartments and then went to the TV studio building. No doors were kicked down — after the interview, Ziobro surrendered to police officers “out of respect for their work.” Now he will have to answer before the Sejm.

The former head of the Ministry of Justice is suspected not only of violating the privacy of citizens but also of purchasing Pegasus with money from the Justice Fund, which was created by the Polish justice authorities in order to assist victims of crime. His deputy Marcin Romanowski, who also figures in the case, has already fled abroad. Romanowski is not just in hiding; he has been granted political asylum in friendly right-populist Hungary. His case symbolizes the tension in today's Polish politics — a climax is anticipated during the presidential election in May.

The defeat of PiS

In 2023, after eight years of rule by the right-wing PiS, power in Poland was transferred to a new alliance, composed of liberals from the Civic Platform, centrists from the Third Way and Peasant Party, and the New Left. After defeating the Conservative government by a wide margin, the new authorities went on to finish off their rivals in the legal field.

One of their boldest moves was the arrest of the former head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik — directly in the presidential palace though both were later pardoned by President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member who retained the support of the party even after officially renouncing his affiliation. The new authorities also summoned for questioning Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS and the twin brother of former president Lech Kaczyński, who was killed in a plane crash near Smolensk in 2010.

The Pegasus scandal is a high-profile example, but it is not the only investigation launched by the Sejm and the prosecutor's office against PiS members. At least five such cases are ongoing — and at least three of them may involve Ziobro as a defendant. The ruling coalition is certain to use this publicity to discredit the right-wing presidential candidate in advance of the election in May.

The president and his veto

To understand the president's role in the parliamentary Polish Republic, one should take a closer look at the incumbent head of state. Since August 2015, the post has been occupied by Andrzej Duda, a PiS protégé who is ineligible for re-election after serving two terms.

After the liberal-centrist governing coalition took shape in November 2023, Duda's nominal party found itself in a minority in the Sejm. However, even on his own, the president remained a serious force when it came to defending the interests of the losing side, vetoing almost all bills that fell outside the conservative political agenda.

He blocked the Gender Recognition Act and an attempt to grant regional status to the Silesian language, which is spoken by about 60,000 people in southwestern Poland, after PiS criticized it as “separatist.” The president also vetoed the decision to raise teacher salaries — the Conservatives had used the issues of welfare payments and wage indexation as a campaigning tool and did not want to see these initiatives hijacked by their opponents.

In addition, Duda refused to sign the appointment of 50 new Polish ambassadors approved by parliament and the government, which in some cases led to the downgrading of diplomatic relations to chargés d'affaires ad interim. This affected relations with the United States, Poland's key partner.

The Polish fact-checking bureau Demagog points out that Duda has set the country’s record for the number of blocked bills. His activities have caused a sort of “political depression” in parliament: many MPs, understanding in advance that the president will veto them, simply do not present certain bills for consideration. The ruling coalition does not have enough votes to overcome Duda’s veto, meaning that its hopes are pinned on the election of a new president who is not affiliated with PiS.

Liberal mayor vs. conservative censor

So who is vying for the presidential seat? The first place in the polls belongs to Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, who also ran for the post in 2020. Previously, he served as a member of the European Parliament and worked elsewhere in the government. Today, in addition to governing the capital, he is Donald Tusk's deputy in the Civic Platform. Despite Trzaskowski’s extensive experience, he is not well-known to the average liberal voter and can be considered a new face in national politics.

Trzaskowski advocates for liberalizing Poland's abortion laws (the current ban on termination of pregnancy has barely any exceptions and is the toughest in Europe), defends women's rights, and has made concerted efforts to integrate Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees into Warsaw's society.

But Trzaskowski’s main political asset is his impeccable reputation: the mayor has managed to steer clear of the various scandals that, at times, have involved the current leaders of the Civic Platform. However, his candidacy is unlikely to be supported by zealous Catholics due to his support of the LGBTQ+ community. This issue in particular at least partially explains why Trzaskowski lost the previous presidential election to current head of state Andrzej Duda.

Trzaskowski's conservative rival is Karol Nawrocki, head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). This institution documents crimes against Poles committed by Hitler's Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-aligned government of the Polish People's Republic (1952-1989), among others. IPN's work bears little resemblance to that of Israel's Yad Vashem or Russia's Memorial Society. Instead, its powers are almost prosecutorial.

Any public servant whom IPN reveals to have voluntarily cooperated with the communist-era state security agencies could be subjected to extensive checks or even removed from their post. Perhaps the most famous IPN paper was a collection of documents on the alleged cooperation of Lech Wałęsa, the democratic revolution leader, with the intelligence services of Communist Poland.

Nawrocki has a degree in history and was head of Poland's World War II museum before joining the institute. As an active fighter against the Soviet narrative, he is wanted in Russia for “complicity in the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators.”

Nawrocki's campaign image has little in common with that of a stereotypical academic researcher. One of the interviews he gave was at the gym where he works out in the company of other tough-looking guys. Nawrocki is backed by Polish MMA fighter Patryk Masiak, also known as “Wielki Bu,” who faces charges of having ties to a pimp gang. The presidential candidate is also accused of friendships with Polish far-right activists.

Nawrocki positions himself as a non-partisan “civic candidate” — even though PiS has come out in support of him. This past January, journalists caught the IPN head on his way out of PiS headquarters, where he was, according to his own statement, “giving an interview.”

Nawrocki has already spoken out on the fundamental issue of abortion, which liberals want to legalize again. He said that if elected, he would veto even the “abortion compromise” — a piece of legislation aimed at decriminalizing abortion in the country. One could say that by doing so he is depriving himself of a significant and rather cohesive part of the female electorate.

At the height of PiS rule, hundreds of thousands of Polish women went on so-called “black marches” — under the slogans “My uterus is my business” and “Hell for women” — to demand the legalization of abortion. However, the Polish electorate also includes the “mohair berets” — a slang term used to describe elderly churchgoing women who support PiS.

Liberal Trzaskowski, for his part, promised to soften the “medieval” anti-abortion law. His Civic Platform owes much of its electoral success to support from women's organizations and has pledged to tackle the abortion issue once in power.

Second-row candidates

The second-row candidates — politicians who, according to polls, have no chance of making it to the second round of the presidential election — include Magdalena Biejat of the Left, Third Way-affiliated centrist and Sejm Speaker Szymon Hołownia, and Sławomir Mentzen, one of the leaders of the Confederation Liberty and Independence, which unites far-right groups from libertarians to monarchists. A total of 20 candidates have announced their participation.

Could one of them win a surprise victory, leaving behind both presidential race leaders? United Surveys' New Year's Eve poll suggests this scenario to be highly unlikely. Of the second-tier parties and electoral associations, the far-right Mentzen has the most support — with only 13% of the respondents' votes.

Polish political analysts believe Mentzen may be supported by Elon Musk, who has a soft spot for offbeat, if not marginal, libertarian parties and openly backs Reform UK and Alternative for Germany. Nevertheless, leading in the polls are Trzaskowski (34%) and Nawrocki (29%), who could easily catch up with his rival once all other options are removed from the ballot in the second round.

Poland is moving in the opposite direction of the pan-European right turn. Technically, PiS, which consolidates the right-wing electorate, won the 2023 elections and remains the country's second most powerful political force. However, almost all other movements have united against PiS over its eight-year rule, and even many disillusioned Catholics and conservatives gave their votes to Szymon Hołownia's Third Way. Together with the leftists who joined them, helped Civic Platform liberals return to power.

Between Washington and Kyiv

Poland and the United States have a long-standing partnership. Poland was the first former Warsaw Pact country to request anti-missile systems from the U.S. — an understandable ask given the proximity of Russia's Iskander bases in the Kaliningrad Region — and subsequently hosted U.S. troops. Today, U.S. military bases in Rzeszów serve as the main staging area for the transfer of international military aid to Ukraine and double as a repair shop for military equipment damaged in the ongoing war.

Both liberals and conservatives in Poland are interested in maintaining friendly relations with Washington, but the latter have been more successful in this regard. In the fall of 2024, President Andrzej Duda urged the large Polish diaspora in America to vote in the presidential election. In the spring of 2024, Duda traveled with Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the U.S. to persuade Republicans to support a new military aid package for Ukraine — which was eventually approved.

Duda's potential successor, Nawrocki, is enthusiastic about the victory of the eccentric, anti-liberal Trump: in his opinion, Poland could become a key participant in the “transatlantic alliance between American and European conservatives.” “We must contribute to the victory of civilization that...was announced by the President of the United States. The victory of good over evil, of life over death,” Nawrocki said at a rally the day after Trump's inauguration.

Andrzej Duda has invited Trump to a Three Seas Initiative summit that will take place in April in Poland, bringing together top officials from the Baltic, Black Sea, and Adriatic states. The Polish press believes that Trump’s acceptance of the invitation would boost the outgoing Duda's ratings and improve Nawrocki's chances of being elected.

Some experts, however, believe that the invitation to the Polish summit is of little importance to the American president, who is known for his transactional approach to foreign policy. As for Nawrocki, he is a complete unknown who should not count on serious advances from Trump.

The liberal camp has so far expressed no enthusiasm about Trump's return to the White House. Trzaskowski urged his supporters to be “less emotional” about political changes in the U.S. and instead maximize mutual benefit from them. In particular, the candidate expressed his wish that Trump would “pin Putin down” for his aggression toward Ukraine. He added that preventing Putin from emerging out of the crisis as a winner is in the “common interest of both the U.S. and Europe.” Prime Minister Donald Tusk has so far limited himself to congratulating Trump in English on Elon Musk’s X platform.

Polish Minister of National Defense and leader of the centrist Peasant Party Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz demonstrates loyalty to the U.S. more actively than other Civic Platform members do. As he stated this past January, Poland allocates about 5% of its GDP to defense, which is more than NATO's charter requires and more than any other EU country. This is exactly what Trump is demanding of his North Atlantic bloc allies.

Warsaw also needs Washington's support in connection with the war in Ukraine. Poland has been one of the leaders in supporting Kyiv, and the future course of the war depends greatly on the strategy Trump chooses to pursue. If the U.S. maintains or increases its level of material aid, Poland will continue to serve as a key logistical link regardless of which candidate wins the presidency.

However, a conservative Nawrocki presidency could opt to support Trump no matter what he decides to do on Ukraine. If U.S. support for Kyiv is indeed reduced, similar moves from Warsaw could gain favor among the rising percentage of t PiS voters who believe that the funds allocated for aid to Ukraine could find better uses at home.

In any case, after Trump's election, Poland found itself at a crossroads. At the moment, Warsaw — the leader of anti-Russian sentiment in Europe — has two prominent “Putinferstehers” for neighbors. One of them, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, recently traveled to Moscow in search of sympathy after Kyiv halted the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine. The other is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose list of friends includes not only Putin, but also Trump and large numbers of Polish conservatives.

The latter are so cordial with Orban that officials in Budapest gave asylum to fugitive Deputy Minister of Justice Marcin Romanowski. In the event of a Nawrocki victory, one can expect the emergence of yet another Putin-friendly leader in Central Europe — one quick to pardon corrupt-but-loyal officials and just as quick to veto any progressive law. If that suits Donald Trump, then his Polish namesake Donald Tusk will lose a major tool of pressure on the Kremlin.