Orbán and
Le Pen cheer Karol Nawrocki’s election as Polish president
Far-right
leaders congratulate nationalist candidate as result deals blow to Donald
Tusk’s pro-EU agenda
Jakub Krupa
in Warsaw and Jon Henley
Mon 2 Jun
2025 11.54 BST
Far-right
leaders in Europe have welcomed the victory of the nationalist opposition
candidate, Karol Nawrocki, in Poland’s presidential elections, a result that
deals a huge blow to the centre-right prime minister Donald Tusk’s reform and
pro-EU agenda.
Nawrocki, a
conservative historian and former amateur boxer, won Sunday’s election with
50.89% of the vote, final figures showed on Monday, ahead of his rival, Rafał
Trzaskowski, the liberal Warsaw mayor and an ally of Tusk, who secured 49.11%.
“Congratulations
to President @NawrockiKn on his fantastic victory,” Hungary’s illiberal prime
minister, Viktor Orbán, posted on social media, adding that he was “looking
forward to working” with the 42-year-old, who has never held elected office.
France’s
far-right National Rally leader, Marine Le Pen, said Nawrocki’s win was “good
news” and marked a “disavowal of the Brussels oligarchy” trying to impose its
“authoritarian policies and federalist ambitions … in defiance of the
democratic will”.
Nawrocki was
backed by the right-populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland
until Tusk’s parliamentary election victory in late 2023.
While the
presidential role is largely ceremonial, it has some influence over foreign and
defence policy, as well as the critical power to veto new laws. This can only
be overturned with a 60% majority in parliament, which Tusk’s coalition does
not have.
Nawrocki’s
veto means it will be hard for the prime minister to pass big changes before
the next elections in 2027.
Nawrocki’s
win was a reversal of early exit polls, which suggested that Trzaskowski would
edge the contest by less than a percentage point. Both candidates subsequently
claimed victory, with Nawrocki’s win officially confirmed at about 8am on
Monday.
Trzaskowski
later conceded, congratulating Nawrocki on a victory “that comes with great
responsibility, especially in such challenging times”. He thanked his
supporters for voting for a “strong, safe, honest and empathetic” Poland.
During a
bitterly fought and often bad-tempered campaign in recent weeks, the two men
offered very different visions of Poland, and the result will have enormous
implications for the country’s political future and for its role in Europe.
Trzaskowski,
a pro-EU progressive, backed abortion law liberalisation and civil partnerships
for LGBTQ+ couples. Nawrocki, who espouses conservative Catholic values, would
probably veto any government attempt to implement such moves.
He is
fiercely critical of the EU and likely to ally himself wherever he can with
other nationalist, Eurosceptic leaders such as Orbán, fuelling divisions within
the bloc at a time when it faces major challenges, including US tariffs and the
war in Ukraine.
Nawrocki
replaces the outgoing president and PiS ally, Andrzej Duda. Tusk’s time as
prime minister has been marked by difficulties bringing his broad coalition
into line, a situation made harder by having an ideologically opposed president
in office.
Nawrocki’s
win will probably prolong deadlock, turning’s Tusk’s government into “a
lame-duck administration for the next couple of years”, said Prof Aleks
Szczerbiak, an expert on east and central European politics at the University
of Sussex.
“And it will
be worse than with Duda, as Nawrocki will come in with a new mandate from what
effectively turned into a referendum on the government,” he added It will also
boost PiS, which clashed heavily with Brussels over the rule of law when in
power.
A senior PiS
lawmaker, Przemysław Czarnek, suggested his party could soon start trying to
pick off members of Tusk’s broad and already fractured coalition, with the
eventual aim of creating a new rightwing majority in parliament.
“I can
reassure you that maybe not starting tomorrow, but from Tuesday, we will begin
very energetic work in order to give the Polish people another gift – the end
of Tusk’s government,” Czarnek said.
Borys Budka,
an MEP from Tusk’s Civic Platform, said he believed PiS would now seek to
“overthrow the legal government”. He said this would be “a big challenge for
the government, which will be blocked when it comes to good initiatives”.
Nawrocki has
headed the Institute of National Remembrance, a state research body often
accused of pushing a politicised version of history, since 2021.
Trzaskowski,
the Oxford-educated mayor of Warsaw since 2018, previously held ministerial
posts and served in the European parliament. He sought to project himself as a
safe pair of hands to work with the government on progressive reforms.
Nawrocki’s
campaign was openly backed by the US president Donald Trump’s Maga movement and
his victory means “Trump will have more to say in Polish politics”, said
Krzysztof Izdebski, the policy director at the Stefan Batory Foundation
thinktank.
EU leaders
put a brave face on the result, which came two weeks after Romania’s
presidential election was won by the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicuşor Dan,
in a setback for the continent’s nationalist forces.
The European
Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Monday she was convinced
the EU could continue its “very good cooperation” with Poland, while Germany’s
president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, sent “warm congratulations”.
Steinmeier
offered close cooperation “on the foundation of democracy and the rule of law”,
in order “to ensure a future for Europe in security, freedom and prosperity”,
adding: “A strong Europe needs good German-Polish cooperation.”
But the
result is likely to weaken Poland’s newfound position at the heart of EU
mainstream decision making and could boost the Czech Republic’s Eurosceptic
opposition leader, Andrej Babiš, before elections in October.
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