Poland’s presidential election signals a wider crisis for European centrists
Presidential elections were held in Poland on May 18th 2025. As no candidate secured more than 50% of the vote, a second round was held on June 1st 2025. Incumbent president Andrzej Duda was ineligible for re-election, as he was term limited. A razor-thin victory for the national-conservative Law and Justice Party reveals deep societal divisions and a broader erosion of centrist coalitions across the West.
Conservative Karol Nawrocki won Poland’s weekend presidential runoff election. Nawrocki won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%. The race had Poland on edge since a first round of voting two weeks earlier, revealing deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union. The outcome suggests that Poland can be expected to take a more populist and nationalist path under its new leader, who was backed by U.S. president Trump. Most day-to-day power in the Polish political system rests with a prime minister chosen by the parliament. However, the president’s role is not merely ceremonial. The office holds the power to influence foreign policy and veto legislation. Under the Polish constitution, the president serves a five-year term and may be re-elected once.
The next parliamentary election in Poland is not until 2027. Current prime minster Donald Tusk came to power in late 2023 with a coalition government that spans a broad ideological divide, so broad that it hasn’t been able to fulfill certain of Tusk’s electoral promises, such as loosening the restrictive abortion law or passing a civil partnership law for same-sex couples. There is a chance there could be a vote of confidence and a new election given the political mood in the country, but it is too early to say.
Regarding the new president, Nawrocki has most recently been the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, which embraces nationalist historical narratives. He led efforts to topple monuments to the Soviet Red Army in Poland and other signs of dictatorship and oppression from the communist past. Nawrocki’s supporters describe him as the embodiment of traditional, patriotic values. Those who oppose secular trends, including LGBTQ+ visibility, have embraced him, viewing him as a reflection of the values they grew up with.
Trump welcomed Nawrocki to the White House a month ago. And last week the conservative group CPAC held its first meeting in Poland to give Nawrocki a boost. Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, strongly praised Nawrocki and urged Poles to vote for him. The U.S. has about 10,000 troops stationed in Poland and Noem suggested that military ties could deepen with Nawrocki as president.
Nawrocki has also echoed some of Trump’s language on Ukraine. He promises to continue Poland’s support for Ukraine but has been critical of Zelenskyy, accusing him of taking advantage of allies. He has accused Ukrainian refugees of taking advantage of Polish generosity, vowing to prioritize Poles for social services such as health care and schooling. As in many Western democracies, the result reveals a nation split down the middle, between conservative rural provinces and progressive urban centers, between nationalism and liberal internationalism.
The stark divide in Poland mirrors a larger pattern across the West, the weakening of the centrist coalitions that once underpinned liberal governance. Centrist elites struggled to maintain coherence, while populist challengers exploited increasing tensions between market openness and social protection, and between cosmopolitanism and community.
With the end of the Cold War came the disappearance of liberalism’s most effective foil. The narrative that had once provided coherence and urgency to the liberal project waned. In the years since, social scientists have sought to understand the erosion of support for liberalism through two broad lenses. The first pertains to discontent stemming from economic shocks, job displacement caused by globalization, and automation. The second relates to cultural anxiety associated with migration, related crime rates, and societal change.
Another interesting observation is that the winning party, PiS, is not the only right-wing party to have had a good election. In the first round, Sławomir Mentzen of the far-right, nationalist, anti-Ukrainian Confederation won almost 15% of the vote, and the openly anti-Semitic Grzegorz Braun won over 6%. Poland’s defeated centrist and liberal elites will need to reflect on these strong performances.
Nawrocki’s victory can be expected to sow instability beyond Poland’s borders. Polish-Ukrainian relations will undoubtedly be harmed. Nawrocki has openly declared that he would not agree to Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the European Union. While the government oversees defense and foreign policy in peacetime, the president becomes the commander-in-chief of the armed forces during wartime.
What should prime minster Tusk do now? Since calling for a vote of confidence to confirm his mandate may lead to more chaos, he and his four-party coalition are likely to stay put until the end of this parliamentary term in 2027.
In practice, Tusk’s government will be largely confined to an administrative role until then. It seems that Trump-backed politicians keep winning elections in Europe and in many cases, they are not conservatives, but rather far-right. We have seen this in the UK, in France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Hungary, Germany and the list can go on. This trend is likely to continue and in the long run, we may see new leaders in many countries, for example the Reform party in the UK, AfD in Germany and Rassemblement national/National Front in France. This was unthinkable only a few years ago. The main reason for this change is the increased legitimization of the far-right parties and their political views combined with economic uncertainty, corruption by the establishment, and the continued problems related to immigrants, in particular Muslims. It seems that major political transformation is underway in Europe and the Polish presidential election was part of that.