Poland is heading to the polls in the second round of high-stakes presidential election that could redefine the country’s political landscape.
Rafal Trzaskowski from the centrist party Civic Coalition (KO) representing Poland’s pro-EU government, will face Karol Nawrocki from conservative and populist Law & Justice opponent in a runoff on 1 June.
After Sunday’s first round, Trzaskowski led Nawrocki by less than two percentage points with 31.36 percent of the vote, a far narrower gap that polls had predicted.
The second runoff scheduled for the next month is expected to determine whether Poland will remain on a pro-European path or lean towards a populist trend that is gaining tracktion after Donald Trump’s election as the US president.
“We must win these elections to prevent one political camp’s monopoly of power,” Trzaskowski told his supporters.
“We are going for victory. I said that it would be close, and it is close. There is a lot, a lot, of work ahead of us, and we need determination,” he went on saying.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on social media that the next two weeks would decide the future of the NATO country. His remarks were voiced after the first-round results came in on Monday.
Donald Tusk and his coalition came to power in 2023, promising to reverse the erosion of democratic checks and balances that had marked PiS’s eight years in government.
