Warsaw Mayor Expected To Win Presidential Election Key To Government’s Reform Agenda

By Rikard Jozwiak May 16, 2025

Poles will cast their ballots in a presidential election on May 18 in a vote seen as crucial for Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his pro-European government’s lives easier as they look to implement their reformist agenda.

After eight years of conservative rule under the Law and Justice party (PiS), Tusk has cobbled together a wide coalition of social democrats as well as centrist and Christian democrats to wrestle back power and dragged Warsaw in a more pro-EU direction.

But he hasn’t had it all his own way. In the Presidential Palace, PiS-backed Andrzej Duda has stymied some of his agenda with vetoes.

The government lacks the three-fifths majority to override the presidential veto that so far has been used to block proposals such as prescription-free access to the morning-after pill and the official recognition of Silesian as a minority language.

He had also threatened to use the veto if more liberal abortion laws came to his desk.

In power since 2015, Duda must now step back having served two full five-year terms. Who will replace him will very much depend on whether Poles want to give Tusk a strong hand to carry out his reforms in the coming years.

Who Will Be President?

Like pretty much all recent elections in Poland, this one will be a battle between Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) and PiS. The PO candidate is Rafal Trzaskowski, the current mayor of Warsaw who was narrowly defeated by Duda in the last presidential election back in 2020. This time it appears the presidency is his to lose.

He is tipped to finish on top with some 30-35 percent of the vote. And in the runoff he should have just enough to defeat Karol Nawrocki, who is expected to place second with 20-25 percent.

But it will not be plain sailing.

In the final debate on May 12, Trzaskowski appeared tired and unfocused and PiS is trying to repeat the trick that helped Duda to power a decade ago — promoting someone relatively unknown and youngish who isn’t actually a member of the party.

Nawrocki, a historian who has headed both Gdansk’s Museum of the Second World War and more recently the powerful Institute for National Remembrance, fit the bill perfectly.

He has narrowed the gap with Trzaskowski in opinion polls in recent weeks, but he has had his own struggles.

Playing up his ordinary lifestyle while claiming to own just one apartment, it was uncovered that Nawrocki in fact has a second one that he appears to have taken possession of by pretending to take care of its disabled, elderly tenant who instead was living in a retirement home.

The fact that he owned a stake in a third apartment has just compounded his problems.

Can Anyone Challenge This Two-Horse Race?

The telegenic speaker of the house, Szymon Holownia, who heads the centrist Poland 2050 party has run a lackluster campaign and will likely get under 10 percent of the vote.

His backers will probably swing behind Trzaskowski in the second round.

Potentially capitalizing on Nawrocki’s recent housing gaffe is Slawomir Mentzen, the candidate of the right-wing populist Confederation.

At one point he was polling neck-and-neck with Nawrocki but appeared to lose support after calling for the complete scrapping of abortion, even in cases of rape, and ending tuition-free university education.

An outspoken fan of US President Donald Trump, Mentzen is big on social media and popular among young, male voters with his mix of economic liberalism, political isolationism, and anti-migrant rhetoric.

His outsider status has made it hard to gauge how much electoral support he really enjoys so one cannot completely rule out his finishing in the top two.

So What Topics Have Dominated The Campaign?

Security, followed by social hot-button issues.

With Russia’s war raging next door in Ukraine, the United States seemingly pivoting away from Europe, and migrants from Africa and Asia being lured by Belarus’s Lukashenka regime and then sent to the Polish border, it’s little wonder that Poles put issues of national safety at the top of the election agenda.

Warsaw already spends nearly 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, the highest among all NATO allies and both top candidates want this spending level to be maintained. But they differ on where to put the emphasis in terms of alliances.

Poland is one of the most pro-American countries in Europe and even though many, including PiS stalwarts, are worried about the Trump administration’s rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nawrocki is still a fan of keeping the United States as close as possible.

He’s keen to strike a bilateral deal directly with Washington, as both Brussels and Berlin are deeply mistrusted within the PiS.

Duda developed a close relationship with Trump during the US leader’s first term in the White House and there are close to 10,000 American troops in the country.

While the Civic Platform by no means wants to cut these ties, it wants to forge closer European links, notably with Berlin and Paris. Tusk’s recent “coalition of the willing” trip to Kyiv together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron is the clearest evidence of this.

And The Social Hot-Button Topics?

This is the circle that is hard to square for Trzaskowski.

As mayor for liberal Warsaw for the last seven years he has supported LGBTQ-rights, endorsed environmental legislation, and banned religious symbols in the city hall.

In a country that is much more religious and conservative than its capital, these are all sticks to hit him with.

At the same time, many on the more liberal side of the spectrum, notably young women, who came out en masse to win the election for the coalition are disappointed with the lack of reforms so far.

They need to mobilize again to carry him over the line.

Granted, Duda has vetoed some initiatives, but the coalition has also been reluctant to put forward fresh proposals on same-sex partnership or abortion knowing that centrist and right-wing fractions in the government are against this.

If Trzaskowski becomes president, there are no excuses anymore. But at the same time, PiS hopes that the country will turn too much to the left too quickly, making the coalition rupture and the parliamentary election in 2027 or earlier winnable.

And Ukraine?

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s big supporters with nearly one million refugees escaping the war-torn country calling it home since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

But support for both Ukraine and Ukrainians living in the country has dropped and both main candidates are in favor of cutting some social contributions for them.

Both have also voiced support for Polish farmers by noting that their livelihood must be secured before Ukraine, with its sizable agricultural sector, can join the EU.

Nawrocki has gone even further on Ukraine, questioning its suitability for both NATO and EU membership and eager to link the country’s membership perspective to full cooperation on a fractious, shared historical past, including the Volhynia massacre.

Source: government-reform-agenda-trzaskowski/33413512.html

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.